



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



AMERICAN 



LITERATURE 



AMERICAN 



LITERATURE. 



BY 

V 

ALBERT H. SMYTH, 

A.B., JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, 
PROFESSOR OF LITERATURE IN THE PHILADELPHIA CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL 



(REVISED EDITION.) 




PHILADELPHIA: 

Eldredge & Brother, 

No 17 North Seventh Street, 
1898. 

L. 



21487 



2^- 



- ■»o^o>« ' 

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by . 

ELDREDGE & BROTHER, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
••o^« — — 



Revised Edition Copyright, 1898. 







w 



Nk^ESTCOTT i THOMSON J 
ELECTROTYPERS, PHILADA. 



M 



r 




Some distinguished American scholars have objected to 
the name " American Literature " as meaningless and mis- 
leading. There would indeed seem to be greater propriety 
in the title " English Literature in America," which defines 
the origin and relation of our literature, and which has great 
merit, too, in that it suggests the kindred blood that unites 
two great nations, and that makes the inhabitants of each 
3ommon possessors of a common inheritance. I have, how- 
ever, thought it best not to interfere with a name that has 
been honored by generations of use, and which now re- 
ceives prompt and generous recognition from the scholars 
of Europe. 

There has been happily awakened in very recent years 
a great and growing interest in American affairs, and par- 
ticularly in the history and significance of American writ- 
ings. Many excellent works have contributed to the com- 
plete understanding of this literature. Professor Scherr 
in Germany, Professor Nichol in England, and Professors 
Tyler and Richardson in America have published skilful 
and laborious studies of our literary development, which 
are indispensable to the scholar and invaluable for the 
reference library, but which are too critical and exhaust- 
ive for school use. 

In the present work I have tried to make a book from 
which teachers can teach, and from which students cannot 
^' cram." Its purpose is to exhibit the process of American 
literature as an evolution. The dependence of this liter- 
ature upon English literature at successive stages of its 
history has been suggested, and the growth of the Amer- 



vi PREFACE, 

ican spirit from Colonial polemics and Revolutionary pol- 
itics to its flowering in the group of classic writers who 
immediately preceded the Civil War has been followed. 

American literature prior to 1765, for obvious reasons, 
has no place in elementary instruction ; very few books of 
Revolutionary times were written with a real literary in- 
tention. These two periods have therefore been crowded 
into a few pages, and the main attention of the book 
directed to the interpretation of the later movement of 
mind in New England by which literature was set free 
from the chilling influence of Puritanism. 

The readings from authors which are appended to the 
history have been selected as characteristic specimens of 
the best or most significant writers of the country. They 
have been chosen also as having a secondary value in illus- 
trating or emphasizing the historical matter in the fore part 
of the book. I have not been deterred from inserting a 
selection because it was old and familiar, nor have I felt 
compelled to insert one because " no hand-book would be 
complete without it." 

Brevity is not an outworn virtue in school-books. The 
bridge need not be much broader than the flood, and even 
the most ambitious of our schools must limit the time it 
can devote to the English language and literature, and of 
that time American books and authors must take their mod- 
est share. 

I have to thank Messrs. Harper & Bro., D. Appleton & 
Co., Mr. Geo. W. Childs, and Mr. E. E. Pratt for allowing 
me to use some of their copyrighted material. 

The selections from Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, 
Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell are used by 
permission of, and by arrangement with, Messrs. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 

ALBEET H. SMYTH. 













CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Colonial Period 9 

CHAPTER 11. 
The Revolutionary Period 24 

CHAPTER III. 
The New York Writers 39 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Awakening of New England 62 

CHAPTER V. 
Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell 101 

CHAPTER VL 
The Historians 119 

CHAPTER VII. 
Edgar Allan Poe and Other Southern Poets ... 127 

CHAPTER VIII. 
From Cooper to the Civil War ... 134 

CHAPTER IX. 
After the Civil War 145 

Readings 167 

vii 




AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



>>K< 



CHAPTER I. 



The Colonial Period. 

1607-1765. 

The History of American Literature comprises the 
Hterature that has been produced in America in the Eng- 
Hsh language. It began with the first settlement on the 
Atlantic coast, and is actively going on at this moment. 
Although we have reason to be proud of the progress of 
our literature in the past and are hopeful of its future, we 
must not make the mistake of thinking it to be a new 
literature, different altogether from that of England. Our 
literature is a continuation of English literature : it is Eng- 
lish literature in America. It should never be forgotten 
that our prose and poetry when at their best are true to 
the great traditions of English thought and English style. 

The New Continent. — The great work of American 
civilization was begun in Virginia in 1607. James the 
First was on the throne of England, and English liter- 
ature was at its height. Shakespeare was still living, 
and Bacon had just completed the first sketch of his 
greatest work, The Novum Organum, American literature 
was therefore fortunate in the time of its beginning. The 

9 



10 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

language came over just when it was richest and most 
flexible. 

The thought of a vast continent, rich and fertile, beyond 
the ocean, impressed the imagination of English writers. 
They waited impatiently to hear from the handful of 
colonists who, by royal permission, had gone to explore 
and to plant the wilderness. One English poet at this 
time called Virginia " Earth's only Paradise," and another, 
Michael Drayton, prophesied the birth of poetry in the 
new land. The wreck of one of the ships of the early ex- 
plorers suggested to Shakespeare the plot of The Tempest 

The first writings in the new continent were news-letters, 
hastily composed, and telling to friends at home the strange 
features and necessary labors of the new land. 

Our First Century is the period of our literary depend- 
ence upon England. Our earliest poets did not change 
their style because they had changed their country, but 
rather clung with greater affection to the literary habits 
in which they had been educated. What Lowell wittily 
said of a much later time is especially true of our first 
writers : 

" They stole Englishmen's books and thought Englishmen's thought, 
With English salt on her tail our wild eagle was caught." 

American literature was a sprout from the great parent- 
trunk in England, and it was detached from a particularly 
vigorous portion of the trunk. 

There was little time in our first century for the arts of 
literature. The energies of the settlers were required to 
cut down the forest, to cultivate the soil, and to prepare 
defences against the Indians. To obtain food, clothing, 
and shelter, to build the homestead, the school-house, 
and the church, engaged all the efforts and all the time 
of the colonists. They were on the edge of an unexplored 
wilderness full of mysterious perils. 

Not only was the progress of literature impossible be- 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 11 

cause of the severe and unceasing toil of the settlers, but 
it must be remembered that they were men without a 
country. There was nothing to inspire in them that spirit 
of national pride and devotion which always finds expres- 
sion in popular literature. 

It required a hundred years of unwritten heroism and 
industry to establish the people securely in their new 
home. 

The Colonial Period, or first era of our literary his- 
tory, may be said to extend from 160Y,the date of the first 
settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, to 1765. The latter 
date marks the time when a great change came over the 
fortunes of the English people in America — when those 
people, aroused to resistance to the foreign authority of 
Great Britain, and inspired by the passion for liberty, were 
approaching the struggle of the Revolution. The Revo- 
lution altered the current of men's thoughts and set new 
subjects before the minds of writers. 

Beginning with the year 1607, it is important to remem- 
ber the group of English colonies planted along the east- 
ern edge of the continent during the seventeenth century. 
They were, in chronological order — Virginia, Massachu- 
setts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode 
Island, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, South 
Carolina, Pennsylvania. 

There were remarkable differences between these colonies. 
They represented different elements of society and of cul- 
ture. Their founders came hither for different purposes, 
and for a century the colonies held little intercourse with 
each other. The most important of the colonies were Vir- 
ginia and Massachusetts. They are the sources of all that 
is best and strongest in American history. From the latter 
we gather almost everything that is valuable in our colonial 
literature. 

The writings of the colonial times, or from 1607 to 1765, 
have for us only an historic interest. They are important 



12 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

so far as they illustrate the character of the founders of 
our nation. But they have not, in themselves, any liter- 
ary interest or value. They were not written either to 
interest or amuse. Their authors were too seriously occu- 
pied with the actual conquest of the soil and the forest, 
with building homes and repelling the dangers of the wil- 
derness, to give time to the arts and graces of literature. 

The works of the first immigrant authors, therefore, 
whether they are rude descriptions of hardship in Virginia 
or collections of tedious New England sermons, are curious 
and interesting precisely as a broken plate that came over 
the sea in the Mayflower's cabin, or a battered sword worn 
by the side of some valiant Pilgrim in Plymouth, and 
which perchance knocked against the heels of Miles Stand- 
ish himself, is curious and interesting. 

The Colonists in Virginia were chiefly of the Royalist 
party and of the Church of England. They had crossed 
the ocean to repair their fortunes with the gold which they 
imagined must abound in the New World. Unlike the 
Puritans of Massachusetts, they had no quarrel with Eng- 
land, and no desire nor intention to found a new order of 
society here. No intensity of feeling nor high resolves 
determined them to seek an asylum in Virginia. They 
therefore did not identify themselves permanently with 
the interests of the country; and the writers among them, 
unlike those of New England, in most cases after a brief 
sojourn returned to Europe. 

For several reasons the Virginian colony was not favor- 
able to the growth of literature and culture. 

1. The people of New England settled in groups of fam- 
ilies forming centres of rapidly-growing towns and cities ; 
the " town-meetings " of citizens and the constant inter- 
course of neighbors resulted in improvements in industry 
and trade, the increase of schools and churches, and " facil- 
ity in the interchange of books, letters, and the like." The 
people of Virginia did not found villages, but lived distant 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 13 

from each other on large estates. No clusters of houses 
were to be seen. In Jamestown, the capital, there were 
only eighteen private dwellings. The natural result was 
the absence of all co-operation and all progress in trade, 
education, and civil affairs. The planter, grown rich by 
the cultivation of tobacco, surrounded himself with his 
slaves and lived a careless, hospitable life, occupying his 
leisure with the English sports of fox-hunting, horse-racing, 
and cock-fighting. 

2. Another serious consequence of the wide separation 
of the settlers in Virginia was the impediment it offered 
to common education. Schools were rare, and indeed 
until the year 1688 "no mention is anywhere made in 
the records of schools or of any provision for the instruc- 
tion of youth." 

3. Not only were schools discouraged, but even print- 
ing was forbidden. Sir William Berkeley, governor of the 
colony, said, " I thank God there are no free schools nor 
printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred 
years ; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy 
and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them 
and libels against the best government. God keep us 
from both !" No printing-press was set up permanently 
in Virginia until 1729. 

Literature in Virginia. — The earliest writings of Vir- 
ginia were descriptions of the new and strange things of 
the country, and of the prosperity or mishaps of the set- 
tlers, written to satisfy the curiosity of friends in England. 
These writings, or " news-letters," were, in every instance, 
printed in England. Mingled with them were certain 
other more scholarly works, such as the translation of 
Ovid's Metamorphoses^ by George Sandys, treasurer of the 
Virginian colony and son of the archbishop of York. 

Among the narratives and descriptions of the country 
were Good News from Virginia^ by Alexander Whitaker, 
published in London in 1613 ; and Leah and Rachel (i, e. 



14 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Virginia and Maryland), by John Hammond, published in 
London in 1656. 

Books of this character and time can hardly be claimed 
for our literature. Their authors were Englishmen who 
happened to be visitors to Virginia, but who printed their 
books in England, and who, in almost every case, returned 
thither. 

Captain John Smith was the first writer to send home 
an account of the wilderness into which he had journeyed 
and in which so many adventures befell him. His first 
book was The True Relation^ of Virginia, published in Lon- 
don in 1608. 

The Pounders of New England landed at Plymouth in 
December, 1620. Within twenty years the population of 
the fifty towns of New England numbered twenty-one 
thousand souls. These people sought a land in which they 
might be free to think and to worship according to their 
own conscience. While the Virginians were laying up 
treasure upon earth, the men of Massachusetts Bay and 
Plymouth were thinking of treasure in heaven. 

There was among them a number of scholarly men. A 
considerable proportion of the Pilgrims were college-bred. 
In the small colony of Massachusetts Bay there were not 
less than seventy graduates of Cambridge and twenty grad- 
uates of Oxford. 

Great importance was attached to education in the new 
colony. Before 1650 public instruction was compulsory 
throughout New England. The founders of New England, 
though stern in their piety, were book-lovers and filled with 
the enthusiasm for knowledge. The chief trait of our fore- 
fathers was earnestness. They were serious in all things. 
Whatever they did in politics, religion, education, or in- 
dustry was done, with prayer and earnest effort. This earn- 
estness made their lives grave and often cheerless. Gayety 



* " Relation '' — that is, account or narrative. 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD, 15 

and beauty were looked upon as things of evil. Their re- 
ligion was solemn and their God wrathful. Their devotion 
to their creed and confidence in their faith made them in- 
tolerant of opposite opinions. They persecuted all who did 
not believe as they did. They drove Roger Williams out 
into the wilderness to find a home in Rhode Island. They 
tortured old women whom they believed to be witches, and 
inflicted the severest punishments for trifling ofi*ences. 
There was no charm nor beauty in their austere lives. 
The American Colleges. — In 1636 the Puritans of Mas- 
sachusetts founded a college at Cambridge. It was called 
Harvard, after a young Charlestown clergyman who be- 
queathed to the "school " eight hundred pounds in money 
and a considerable library. Nothing could illustrate more 
powerfully the high value set upon learning by our Puritan 
ancestors than this establishment of a college so soon after 
the first landing on these shores. The intelligence and 
the public spirit of the founders of our nation and of our 
literature are alike justified by it. 

1. Harvard College was intended to teach the classical 
languages and Hebrew, and to train learned men for the 
service of the Church. It soon made its reputation on both 
sides of the ocean. It has been the school of the largest 
number of American writers. Throughout Colonial and 
Revolutionary times, and in dark days of our history, it 
has impressed upon the youth of the country how excel- 
lent a thing knowledge is. 

2. Before the Pilgrims landed, in 1619, and again in 
1622, the Virginians submitted proposals to England for 
the establishment of a university. That it might be safe 
from the ravages of Indians, it was proposed to build the 
college on an island in the Susquehanna River. But no 
institution of learning was actually established in Virginia 
until the close of the century. Then, in 1693, the College 
of William and Mary was founded. 

It is a significant fact that the first and last battle-fields of 



16 AMERICAN LfTEEATUBE. 

the Revolution were in the immediate neighborhood of these 
two colleges of Massachusetts and Virginia. There, where 
our patriots, soldiers, and statesmen had been educated, 
the war began and ended. It began on Bunker Hill, and 
Cornwallis surrendered in the vicinity of Williamsburg, the 
seat of the Virginian college. 

Among the distinguished students of William and Mary 
were Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, President of 
the Continental Congress of 1774, President James Mon- 
roe, Judge Blair of the Supreme Court, and several of the 
governors of Virginia and Maryland. 

3. In 1700, Yale College was founded at New Haven, 
Connecticut, and from it, in the eighteenth century, came 
the most eminent thinker of colonial times, Jonathan Ed- 
wards. 

4. The College of New Jersey dates from 1746 ; Co- 
lumbia College (New York), from 1754; the University 
OF Pennsylvania, from 1755; and Brown University 
(Rhode Island), from 1764. 

The first Printing-Press was set up at Cambridge, Mass., 
in 1639. The first book printed on it was the Bay Psalm- 
booh (1640), a collection of versified psalms of the most 
wretched character. It was partly compiled by Bishop 
Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians and translator of the Bible 
into the Indian tongue. 

The Literature of New England was, throughout the 
Colonial period, of a religious character. The only ques- 
tions of general interest w^ere questions of theology. The 
writers of books and pamphlets were men who had fought 
for their religious opinions. They had exiled themselves 
that they might be free to worship God according to the 
dictates of their own conscience. Naturally, the first pub- 
lications were in defence of their creed. Their only literary 
object was to explain divine truth as they perceived it. Re- 
ligious books and pamphlets therefore form the great bulk 
of the publications of the Colonial period of Literature. 



THE COLONIAL PEETOD. 17 

For instance^ between the years 1706 and 1718 " all the pub- 
lications known to have been printed in America number at 
least five hundred and fifty. Of these all but eighty-four 
were on religious topics, and of the eighty-four, forty-nine 
were almanacs." 

Besides sermons, religious discourses, pious tracts, etc., 
there were a few historical ivritings, or, more correctly, diaries 
of contemporary events. 

William Bradford (1588-1657), an important writer 
of the latter class, was the second governor of Plymouth 
Colony. He held that office almost every year from 1621 
until 1657, when he died. His principal book, and the 
chief historical writing of early New England, was the His- 
tory of Plymouth Plantation, It was left unpublished. The 
manuscript passed through several hands, and was at last 
placed in the library of Old South Church, Boston. When 
the British occupied Boston the library was plundered, and 
Bradford's History disappeared. In 1855 it was found in 
the library of the bishop of London. 

Other Historical Writers. — Of equal literary worth 
with Bradford's history, and of perhaps still more histori- 
cal value, is the History of New England from 1630 to 1649, 
by John Winthrop (1588-1649), governor of Massachu- 
setts Bay. 

Thomas Morton (1575-1646), an adventurer, vexed the 
pious people of Massachusetts by establishing a boisterous 
crew of merry-makers at Mount Wollaston, now Braintree, 
Mass. This settlement, so off"ensive to the Puritans, he 
called " Merry Mount," and there he raised a May-pole and 
instituted the gay sports of Old England. Morton was 
charged with teaching Indians the use of fire-arms. He 
was arrested by Captain Miles Standish and sent to Eng- 
land. In 1637 he published The New England Canaan, 
fall of ridicule of the Puritan faith and manners. He 
returned to Massachusetts, and was imprisoned for his 
unpardonable literary "scandal." 



18 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Nathaniel Ward (1579-1652), a minister of culture and 
experience, published in 1647, in London, one of the most 
curious books written in the colonies. It was called The 
Simple Cobbler of Aggawam (Essex). It was a sharp satire 
on the new opinions that were then rife in both Old and 
New England — a truly vigorous polemic directed against 
long hair and female frivolity. All these books, however, 
are mere literary curiosities. They are not easily found 
by the general reader, and are hard enough reading when 
found. They are far more important in that they contain 
legends or facts that have been built up by more modern 
authors into romances, poems, and histories of enchanting 
interest. Thus, out of the dull materials of the books 
just mentioned Motley wrote his novel Merry Mount, and 
Hawthorne his ilfa7/-pofe of Merry Mount; Longfellow his 
New England Tragedies, and Whittier his John Underhill 
and the Familisfs Hymn. 

-Roger AVilliams (1600 ?-1683).— The date and place of 
Roger Williams' birth are in doubt. He emigrated to 
Massachusetts in 1631. He preached for a time at Salem, 
but was summoned, in 1635, before the General Court at 
Boston to answer the charge of heresy. In 1636 he founded 
the city of Providence, where he obtained great influence 
over the Indians, with whose language he was familiar. 
He wrote a number of books, all of which are inspired by 
a spirit of toleration which places their author in the first 
rank of the liberal minds of the seventeenth century. 

Among the more famous of his works are the Bloody 
Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience (1644) ; Hire- 
ling Ministry None of Chris fs (1652) ; George Fox Digged 
Out of His Burr owes (1676) ; and Key into the Language of 
America (1643). 

Two Colonial Poets. — In the bleak atmosphere of 
Puritanism flourished two writers of what, in the seven- 
teenth century, passed for verse among the people of New 
England. They were Anne Bradstreet (1612-72) and 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 19 

Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1715). The former wrote a 
dull poem to which she gave the following portentous title : 
Several Poems compiled with great Variety of Wit and Learn- 
ing, full of Delight, wherein especially is contained a Complete 
Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, 
Ages of Men, Seasons of the Year, together with an exact Epitome 
of the Three First Monarchies, viz., the Assyrian, Persian, and 
Grecian, and the beginning of the Roman Commonwealth to the 
end of their last King; with divers other Pleasant and serious 
Poems, by a Gentlewoman of New England {Boston, 1640). 
Wigglesworth wrote the Day of Doom, a pitiful and pain- 
ful attempt at poetry. It is a rhymed version of the Pu- 
ritan doctrine of future punishment. 

Increase Mather 1639-1723), rendered valuable services 
to the Massachusetts Colony. He wrote more than a hun- 
dred different works, among which are A History of the War 
with the Indians (1676) and Remarkable Providences (1684). 

Cotton Mather (1663-1728). — The greatest men of 
America during the colonial period were Cotton Mather 
(son of Increase Mather), Jonathan Edwards, and Ben- 
jamin Franklin. Mather was an industrious writer. He 
was the author of more than four hundred different works. 
He was one of a distinguished family of clergymen who 
for three generations had furnished the Puritan pulpit 
with men of learning. He was born in Boston, February 
12, 1663, and entered Harvard College when only eleven 
years old. He gathered the largest collection of books in 
America, and became, without doubt, the most learned 
man in the colonies. " To preach seventy sermons in 
public, forty more in private, keep thirty vigils and sixty 
fasts, and still have time for persecuting witches, was noth- 
ing unusual for him to do in a year." 

His most celebrated book was the Magnalia Christi Amer- 
icana, or " great things done by Christ for the American 
people." It is the ecclesiastical history of New England 
from 1620. 



20 AMERTCAN LITERATURE, 

Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) was the greatest of all 
New England thinkers. More than that, he was perhaps 
the clearest reasoner America has yet produced. He was 
born in East Windsor, Conn., in 1703, was graduated at 
Yale College in 1720, was pastor of a church at Northamp- 
ton, Mass., from 1726 until 1750, and died president of 
Princeton College in 1758. His principal book is entitled 
Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will (1754.) All his acute 
logic was employed in the service of that system of the- 
ology which has taken its name from John Calvin. 

Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) was the first and the 
only man of letters in colonial times to achieve European 
renown. He brought America prominently before the 
minds of the Old World, and commanded respect for his 
country and admiration for himself. He was born in Bos- 
ton January 17, 1706. His father was a tallow-chandler, 
and his mother a daughter of Peter Folger, who in his 
day had some reputation as a writer. Franklin was appren- 
ticed to his brother, who was a printer, but ran away and 
went to Philadelphia in 1723. The description of his entry 
into Philadelphia, which was to be the scene of his busy 
labors for more than sixty years, forms the most amusing 
portion of his Autobiography. 

Among all the great men in our history who have risen 
from humble origin to great fame none have achieved 
greatness in so many ways as Benjamin Franklin. He Svas 
a shrewd, practical man of the world, the very embodiment 
of the common sense of the country. His character and 
career are far enough away from the stern religious men 
we have been considering. Franklin's mind was attentive 
to trifles, his philosophy never got beyond the homely 
maxims of worldly prudence, and yet in the great crisis of 
the Revolution his discernment and sagacity proclaimed 
him a statesman of equal acumen with the leaders of 
European thought. 

Franklin's enormous versatility is the feature of his life ; 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD, 21 

he was fertile and successful in science, diplomacy, philan- 
thropy, and literature. 

His invention of the stove and the lightning-rod, his 
papers on electricity and the Gulf Stream, attest the service 
he rendered to the cause of science. The University of Ox- 
ford and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland recog- 
nized the value of his scientific work when they conferred 
upon him the degree of doctor of philosophy. 

He signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty 
of Alliance, the Treaty of Peace, and the Constitution of the 
United States. 

All manner of public reforms were suggested by him : he 
mended and cleaned streets, organized the police and fire 
departments, reconstructed the postal system, and founded 
hospitals. The Philadelphia Library is his, the University 
of Pennsylvania was started by him, and the American 
Philosophical Society owes to him its origin. 

His Literary Career. — In spite of the multitude of his 
writings, Franklin is not an important literary character. 
American literature in his time had not yet begun. He 
had no ambition for literary fame. His language was terse 
and simple, his style often careless and in bad taste ; but 
there was no affectation, no display of learning nor posing 
for applause. The author carried the simplicity of his life 
into his writings. Practical sense and homely wit charac- 
terize all his subjects. The most prominent, and by very 
much the best- written of his works, are the Autobiography, 
Father Abraham^s Speech, and Poor Richard's Almanac, An 
almanac in those days was an indispensable book in every 
household. It hung by the fireplace ready for consultation 
or for memoranda. It became the account-book of the fam- 
ily ; the margins of its pages would often be crowded with 
labored calculations and mnemonic notes. We have al- 
ready seen that in the first twelve years of Franklin's life 
forty-nine of the eighty-four non-religious books printed in 
the colonies were almanacs. Their information was upon 



22 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the crops, the weather, and the roads. In 1732, Franklin 
pubUshed the masterpiece among almanacs. It was the 
Poor Richard Almanac just quoted. Its characteristic feat- 
ure was its crisp proverbs full of kitchen wisdom, the duty 
of industry, and the making of money. For instance: 
" God helps them that help themselves;" " Keep thy shop, 
and thy shop will keep thee ;" " Early to bed and early 
to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise ; " " Little 
strokes fell great oaks;'' "Three removes are as bad as a 
fire;" "Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them;" "It 
is hard for an empty bag to stand upright." 

Franklin's Autobiography has always been a de- 
servedly popular book. No more uniformly interesting 
and successful autobiography was ever written. Fifty edi- 
tions of it in this country alone testify to the popular ap- 
preciation of it. It is a book whose fame is assured, and 
as a piece of literature it has been pronounced equal to the 
permanently interesting and popular Robinson Crusoe. The 
edition by John Bigelow is the only one which retains 
the old spelling and gives the story exactly as Franklin 
wrote it. 

Franklin's practical sayings have become part of the 
wisdom of the people, and are everywhere familiar. His 
name, like that of Washington Irving, has been given to 
towns, boroughs, streets, societies, and corporations. Gen- 
eral Washington alone among Americans is so intimately 
and universally known by all classes of people. 

David Ramsay (1749-1815).— A physician in Philadel- 
phia and Charleston, S. C. ; was an active participant in 
Revolutionary politics, and became an impartial and ac- 
complished historian. He wrote A History of the South 
Carolina Revolution (1785) ; A History of the American Revo- 
lution (1789) ; A History of South Carolina (1809), and A 
History of the United States (1607-1808). 

Newspapers. — The first newspaper published in Amer- 
ica was Public Occurrences, in 1690. But it was intended to 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 23 

appear monthly — was therefore more of a pamphlet than a 
paper — and was quickly suppressed by the General Court. 

The Boston News-Letter^ the second newspaper of the col- 
onies, was first printed in Boston by John Campbell, post- 
master of the town, on the 17th of April, 1704. 

In 1719 the Boston Gazette was established by the new 
postmaster, and was printed by James Franklin. One day 
later the American Weekly Mercury appeared in Phila- 
delphia. James Franklin himself founded the fifth news- 
paper, the New England Courant, in 1721, to which Benja- 
min Franklin contributed his earliest compositions. Be- 
fore the close of the year 1765, which we have taken as the 
boundary of the colonial period, there had been established 
in all the American colonies at least forty-three news- 
papers, eleven of which belonged to Massachusetts, five to 
Pennsylvania, eight to New York, and one to Virginia. 

The First Literary Journal was founded by Franklin 
in Philadelphia in 1741. It was called The General Maga- 
zine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Provinces in 
America. It lasted but six months, has but little liter- 
ary value, but is interesting because, with Andrew Brad- 
ford's American Magazine^ published at the same time, it 
marks the earliest efibrt to establish the monthly magazine 
or literary journal in America. 

Isolation of the Colonies. — The most important fact to 
be remembered in a study of the first period of our history 
is the tendency in each colony to isolation from its neighbors. 
There was very little communication between the colonies. 
Each had its own laws, money, and social customs. Nat- 
urally, therefore, the Cavaliers of Virginia continued to 
think and write in a diff*erent vein from the Roundheads 
of New England, and the Quakers of Pennsylvania had 
nothing in common with either. 




CHAPTER 11. 
The Revolutionary Period. 

1765-1809. 

The New Era.— About the middle of the eighteenth 
century certain changes were manifested in the character 
of the American people. New subjects were thought upon, 
and the old Puritan earnestness was directed from religion 
to politics. The colonies also drew closer together, and 
made common cause against foreign injustice. The Revo- 
lutionary War and the causes which led to it created a new 
interest in literature, as well as an excitement in politics. 
It is hard to say just when the new period began. The 
war-clouds had been gathering for years before the " em- 
battled farmers" at Concord ^' fired the shot heard round 
the world." All great movements in history progress 
slowly, and are almost imperceptible in their earliest 
stages. It is not possible to say on what day spring be- 
gins, nor in what year a new epoch in history commences. 
But it is convenient to take the critical year 1765, in which 
Patrick Henry denounced the Stamp Act as subversive 
of British and American liberty, and in which the first 
Colonial Congress met in New York, as the starting-point 
of the second great period in the history of our American 
writings. It was not until the end of this period, and 
until well on in the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, that literature began to be cultivated for its own 

24 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 25 

sake, and that really important men of letters arose in 
this country. The writings of the Revolutionary times 
are chiefly important from their historical character and 
connections. Few of them have any considerable literary 
value. 

The character of the colonial period was theological ; the 
character of the Revolutionary period was political. The 
productions of the colonial period weie theological contro- 
versies ; the productions of the Revolutionary period were 
political pamphlets. In the second period, therefore, poli- 
tics replaced polemics, and passion took the place of argu- 
ment. Literature gave voice to vigorous denunciation of 
tyranny, and cherished with enthusiasm the love of lib- 
erty. All the forcible public documents of the age of Rev- 
olution breathe a spirit of self-reliance. 

New France or New England ? — That was the ques- 
tion upon the answer to which, in the eighteenth century, 
depended the destiny of America and the existence of our 
literature. Two great European powers, France and Eng- 
land, began to occupy the New World about the same time, 
and between them inevitably arose a struggle for the pos- 
session of this continent. In 1607, England successfully 
lodged a handful of colonists at Jamestown; in 1608, 
France made a successful settlement at Quebec. These 
two nations represented different historic ideas and crossed 
the ocean for different purposes. The English have always 
been a diligent and successful colonizing people. Their 
object in America was to colonize — to build cities, to estab- 
lish communities, to advance trade and education. The 
French have never been an active colonizing people. Their 
object in America was to conquer — to build forts, to win 
converts to religion, and to establish an empire. 

Throughout the North and North-west the daring explor- 
ers, the fearless soldiers, the cultivated leaders, and the 
enthusiastic priests of France extended the power of their 
country, penetrated the wilderness, adventured on the great 



26 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

rivers and the great lakes, and opened up the vast unknown 
territory of a savage country. The Valley of the Missis- 
sippi they named Louisiana, after their king, Louis XIV. 
They founded Mobile (1702) and New Orleans (1714), and 
connected these extreme Southern posts with remote 
Quebec by means of a great chain of forts. The armed 
power of king and noble began then to menace the exist- 
ence of the English colonies, whose isolated settlements lay, 
a narrow fringe of civilization between the wilderness and 
the deep sea, along the extreme eastern edge of the conti- 
nent. The fear of French aggression first suggested to the 
minds of the English colonists the idea of union. In 1722, 
and again in 1754, plans for united action were devised 
and discussed. In the latter year the Albany Plan of 
Union was conceived, which was, however, rejected by 
the colonies. 

The evolution of the idea of confederation or union was the 
first step toward national history and national literature. 

Had France and her savage allies been successful in the 
French and Indian wars, all freedom of thought and speech 
would have been suppressed, and a despotic, feudal gov- 
ernment would have been firmly fastened upon America. 
The triumph of England meant the security of liberty, 
the extension of commerce, and the natural development 
of the country. 

In 1759, General Wolfe captured Quebec. The question 
of a century and a half was answered. The New World 
was New England, not New France. ^' The gigantic ambi- 
tion of France, striving to grasp a continent," had failed. 
The Puritan commonwealth, vitalized by pure ideas of lib- 
erty and justice, industrious in labor, and zealous in duty, 
was free to plant, to trade, to build, and to work toward 
the inauguration of a great nation. 

First Republican Ideas. — The idea oi union had been 
born in the struggle with France, and that struggle had 
also educated some of the shrewd minds of the colonies in 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 27 

knowledge of affairs of state. The caprice and the indif- 
ference of the home government had developed with extra- 
ordinary efficiency the idea of self-reliance in the colonists. 
The meeting at Albany to devise a plan of union was there- 
fore naturally followed in eleven years (or in 1765) by a 
much more important convention at New York, the first 
Colonial Congress, to protest against the Stamp Act; at 
which the ideas of union and of self-reliance or independ- 
ence were asserted against England itself. It was a deci- 
sive step, and the Revolution in all its grim earnestness 
was not far off. 

The Revolution. — The story of the Revolutionary War 
belongs to history, not to literature. It was attended by a 
certain amount of excited debate and impassioned decla- 
mation, and it left the newborn nation so exhausted by the 
eight years' struggle that twenty-six years elapsed after its 
close before the first American man of letters, Washington 
Irving, appeared with an American book. When, however, 
the tumult of the Revolution subsided, certain definite 
political ideas had gained national expression, and the 
various voices of the original colonies, of Cavalier and 
Puritan, Quaker and Huguenot and Catholic, had com- 
bined in one unmistakable accent. 

Our political literature of the period began with the co- 
pious and splendid speeches of the great orators, and ended 
with the judicial arguments of the formulators of the Con- 
stitution. The period was not without its poetry, its sat- 
ire, and its wit, but all its literary products closely followed 
the style of English works. 

The Orators. — Periods of revolution are always pro- 
ductive of persuasive orators. The French Revolution was 
represented by a host of brilliant speakers, and the first 
fervent utterances of liberty in this country came from a 
group of eloquent orators in both the North and the South. 
Prominent among them were Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)^ 
James Otis (1725-83), Josiah Quincy (1744-75), and Pat- 



28 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

RICK Henry (1736-99). The animated themes of the clos- 
ing years of the eighteenth century were discussed with 
force and fiery passion by these men. The effect of their 
addresses was intense, but more from the earnestness and 
power with which they were delivered than from any 
particular merit in the writing. They show, on calmer 
reading, the faults of hurried composition, unregulated by 
reason or logical analysis. The great speeches of Patrick 
Henry, particularly his famous one before the Virginia 
convention of 1775, have been repeated until their words 
are as familiar in our memories as the clauses of the Dec- 
laration of Independence itself. But his addresses, like 
those of Adams and Quincy, owe their reputation largely 
to tradition, and in many cases the very words of the orig- 
inal speeches have been forgotten, and have been supplied 
by later writers. William Wirt, the biographer of Henry, 
probably wrote a considerable part of the thrilling address 
to the convention of Delegates in 1775, and it is well known 
that the most popular of Otis's speeches was written by 
Lydia Maria Child, and is to be found in her novel, The 
Rebels, 

The Spirit of '76.— At midnight of the 18th of April, 
1775, Paul Revere raised the " cry of alarm to every Mid- 
dlesex village and farm," and at seven o'clock on the fol- 
lowing morning eight hundred British soldiers bound for 
Concord found themselves confronted by the minutemen, 
the "embattled farmers." Rev. William Emerson, the 
grandfather of the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, advised 
his people to " stand their ground." 

Longfellow has told in " Paul Revere's Ride " the story 
of the Revolutionary rising, and Emerson, in his " Hymn 
on the Dedication of the Concord Monument," has told of 
the firing of the shot heard round the world. In 1776 
Thomas Paine wrote, in the Crisis^ " These are the times 
that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sun- 
shine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of 



THE EEVOLUTIONARY PERIOD, 29 

his country ; but he that stands it now, deserves the love 
and thanks of man and woman." This soul-trying crisis 
is the heroic age of our history. It disciplined every fac- 
ulty of mind and summoned up every energy. It taught 
heroism, faithfulness, steadfastness. It produced import- 
ant political documents, but was necessarily barren of all 
purely literary compositions. 

Thomas Paine. — The Crisis, the first words of which 
have just been quoted, and which appeared at irregular in- 
tervals during the Revolution, was the work of Paine, and 
exercised a considerable influence upon the fortunes of the 
war. The first number appeared during the winter of 
1776, and was read by order of General Washington to 
all the American troops. Undoubtedly, the stirring words 
and patriotic fervor of the author went far to preserve the 
courage and discipline of the army. 

Paine was born in Norfolk, England, in 1737, and died 
in New York in 1809. He came to America in 1774 with 
introductory letters from Franklin. His principal literary 
works are three in number. Common Sense, published in 
1776, argued in simple language for the complete inde- 
pendence of the colonies. The Rights of Man appeared in 
1791 ; it was a reply to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the 
French Revolution, and was the most popular political work 
in France and England that has ever been published. The 
last of Paine's books. The Age of Reason, was partly written 
while the author was imprisoned in France by order of the 
Revolutionists, whom he had offended. It was a vulgar 
attack upon the Bible. But its abusiveness and scurrility 
ought not to blind us to the great services which Paine 
rendered to the cause of American liberty. 

The Makers of the Nation. — The American people 
were made into a nation by the adoption of the Consti- 
tution of 1789. The men who conceived the plan of that 
Constitution, and thereby created the National Govern- 
ment, are the real makers of the nation. Prominent among 



30 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

them were Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Mad- 
ison, George Washington, John Adams, Fisher Ames, 
Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Joseph Story. 

The formal cessation of hostilities after the surrender of 
Cornwallis was on the 19th of April, 1783, on the eighth 
anniversary of the conflict at Concord. As soon as Paine 
heard that the preliminary negotiations for a treaty of 
peace had been concluded, he published the final num- 
ber of the Crisis, in which, reverting to the now famous 
words with which he had begun its publication seven years 
before, he said, " The times that tried men's souls are over." 
But the security of the nation was not determined by the 
peace over which Paine and the patriots exulted. On 
the contrary, the next six years, from 1783 to 1789, were 
the most critical in all our history. The destinies of the 
country were shaped and the great federal nation was 
formed by the men whose discussions produced the Consti- 
tution under which we live. 

Thomas JefiFerson by writing the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence became the author of the most famous political 
document in history. He prepared the way for the expan- 
sion of America by purchasing Louisiana from the French. 
He founded the University of Virginia and made liberal 
provision for the complete study of English literature. 
The statute for religious liberty in Virginia emanated from 
him. His Notes on Virginia display considerable literary 
finish and at times a fine sense of style. This ardent Dem- 
ocrat and Anti-federalist received his earliest instruction at 
William and Mary College, and was one of the best edu- 
cated of American statesmen. He was born in Shad well, 
Albemarle county, Virginia, April 2, 1743, and died at 
Monticello in the same county on the Fourth of July, 1826, 
just fifty years after the Declaration of Independence; 
John Adams died upon the same day. 

The Constitution. — "As the British Constitution is 
the most subtle organism which has proceeded from pro- 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 31 

gressive history, so the American Constitution is the most 
wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the 
brain and purpose of man." These are the famous words 
in which Mr. Gladstone described the work of the makers 
of the nation. Never before had a written constitution 
been produced of such uniform excellence, so wisely 
adapted to the needs and circumstances of the people, and 
withal so admirable as a literary performance both in pre- 
cision and simplicity. 

The Federal convention which framed this political mas- 
terpiece consisted of fifty-five members, twenty-nine of 
them university-men. It was " an assembly of demigods," 
said Jefferson. In the discussion over the Constitution 
arose the two great political parties which absorbed the 
various local parties of the States. Those who supported 
the new Constitution were Federalists; their opponents 
were called Anti-federalists. The national issue gave rise 
to endless controversy which expressed itself in number- 
less pamphlets, caricatures, satires, and heated arguments. 

The Federalist is the chief work of the Revolutionary pe- 
riod. It is not surpassed by any similar essay on govern- 
ment in the world's literature. It is " undoubtedly the 
most profound and suggestive treatise on government that 
has ever been written" [Fiske]. The Federalist was a 
series of papers addressed to the people of New York urg- 
ing them to adopt the Constitution, and to that end ex- 
plaining in simple and incisive language its meaning and 
practical working. The plan originated with Alexander 
Hamilton, and the essays were written by Hamilton, 
John Jay, and James Madison. They were published in 
the Independent Gazetteer^ a semi- weekly journal of New 
York, over the signature " Publius." There were in all 
eighty-five papers, Hamilton writing fifty-one, Madison 
twenty-nine, and Jay five. 

Alexander Hamilton wrote the first number of the 
Federalist in the cabin of a sloop on the Hudson River, in 



32 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

October, 1787. It is upon these essays and their masterly 
interpretation of the fundamental principles of government 
that the literary fame of Hamilton depends. His other 
services to the country, however, were of great import- 
ance. He was Secretary of the Treasury, and of him Web- 
ster said, " He smote the rock of the national resources, and 
abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched 
the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its 
feet." Among his important writings are letters and opin- 
ions on a national banking system. Hamilton was un- 
doubtedly the wisest and most brilliant of American states- 
men. He was born in the island of Nevis, West Indies, 
January 11, 1757, and was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr 
July 12, 1804. 

Other Political Writers.— Fisher Ames (1758-1808) 
wrote several political papers under the pen-names of Bru- 
tus and Camillus. He was more careful of his literary 
style than were any of his contemporaries, and illuminated 
his speeches and his essays with picturesque descriptions 
and well-chosen figures. His rich imagination loaded his 
style with fanciful ornament. For example, in describing 
the nations of the European continent he writes : '' Com- 
merce has not a single ship ; arts and manufactures exist in 
ruins and memory only ; credit is a spectre that haunts its 
burying-place ; justice has fallen on its own sword ; and 
liberty, after being sold to Ishmaelites, is stripped of its 
bloody garments to disguise its robbers." 

Chief-Justice John Marshall (1755-1835) wrote the 
Life of Washington^ and strengthened the Constitution by 
his clear legal decisions. 

William Wirt (1772-1834), a native of Maryland, was 
appointed attorney-general of the United States in 1817. 
His fame was great as a lawyer and public speaker. The 
passage in his speech upon the trial of Burr in which he 
described the home of Blennerhasset is still quoted and 
admired. His earliest work was The British Spy (1803). It 



THE BEVOLUTIONARY PERIOD, 33 

contains a number of florid and at times vivid accounts 
of orators and oratory. Its best essay is upon " The Blind 
Preacher" (James Waddel). The Old Bachelor (1812) in- 
cludes several essays upon Virginia, the fine arts, etc., writ- 
ten in the style of the Spectator. Wirt also wrote The Life 
of Patrick Henry (1817). 

Joseph Story was born in Marblehead, Mass., Septem- 
ber 18, 1779, and died in Cambridge, Mass., September 10, 
1845. He began the practice of law in Salem, Mass. In 
1811 he w^as appointed by President Madison an associate 
justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was 
the first professor of law in the Dane Law School at Harvard. 
In spite of his busy life as teacher and as judge, he found 
time to write more text-books on jurisprudence than any 
other writer of his time. Among his best works are Com- 
mentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833) ; Com- 
mentaries on the Conflict of Laws (1834), Commentaries on 
Equity Jurisprudence (1835), Laiv of Partnership (1841), 
Law of Bills of Exchange (1843), Law of Promissory Notes 
(1845). 

His son, William Wetmore Story (1819-1896), was a 
poet and artist. He was the author of Roba di Roma ; or^ 
Walks and Talks about Rome (1862), Tragedy of Nero (1875) 
Castle St, Angelo (1877), He and She ; or, A PoeVs Portfolio 
(1883). 

Poets of the Revolution. — Among all the passionate 
and argumentative writing of the time rose a poetry which 
devoted itself to the glory of the patriot cause and the ridi- 
cule of the Tories. This new poetic spirit is best repre- 
sented by three men — John Trumbull, Joel Barlow, and 
Philip Freneau [pronounced Fre'no']. Born within a few 
years of each other, Trumbull in 1750, Barlow in 1754, 
and Freneau in 1752, they began to write at the begin- 
ning of the Revolution, and all lived beyond the century 
and saw the successful result of the struggle in which they 
had done so much to assist. 



34 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Trumbuirs major poem was McFingal, the most popular 
of the Revolutionary period, and the most important in 
our literature prior to 1800. Numerous editions of it were 
necessary in this country, and it was several times re- 
printed in England, Its popularity was deserved, for its 
English is at times quite as good as that of its great model, 
Hudibras.^ Its only rival among the political satires of 
our own country is The Bigloio Papers of James Russell 
Lowell. The first canto of the poem was written in 1775 
upon the events of the campaign of that year, and pub- 
lished in Philadelphia. The complete poem, in four 
cantos, was revised at the close of the war, and published 
at Hartford in 1782. 

McFingal, who takes his name from the Scotch hero of 
the Ossian poems, represents the Tory party. Honorius 
is the champion of the Whigs. The greater part of the book 
is an animated controversy between the two party-lead- 
ers, ending in a free fight about the liberty-pole. McFin- 
gal is tarred and feathered, and escapes the mob by break- 
ing from a window and flying to the camp of General Gage 
at Boston. The American spirit which everywhere pene- 
trates and permeates the poem lends an original flavor to 
the verses, which in literary form are close imitations of 
Butler's Hudibras. 

Barlow's most pretentious work was the colossal Colum- 
Mad (1807). It is unspeakably dull and altogether un- 
readable. The plan of the huge epic is very simple. Hes- 
per releases Columbus from his Spanish prison and trans- 
ports him to a mountain-summit commanding a royal 
vision of the vast dimensions of America. It is not a bird's- 
eye view which is vouchsafed to Columbus and the reader, 
but the eye-stroke of a phoenix which encompasses the 
geography of the continent and the history of '^ Columbia." 
The conquest of Mexico, the ancient civilization of Peru, 

"^Hudibras, a mock-epic written by Samuel Butler in England, in 
1663-64, in ridicule of the Puritans. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 35 

the plantation of the Enghsh colonies in North America, 
the French War, the Revolution, — all wind slow and stately 
through the interminable pages of this monstrous epic. 
The artificial style, the showy rhetoric, and cheap imagery 
of the poem are derived from servile imitation of the glit- 
tering versifiers of the Queen Anne age. 

Satire is the most potent instrument of political crises, 
and all the poets of the Revolution were adroit and suc- 
cessful in their use of it. Although Barlow's failure was 
complete in attempting a serious epic, his success was quite 
genuine when in 1793 he composed a mock-heroic poem 
entitled Hasty Pudding. It is a clever work, abounding in 
the peculiar American humor which appeared early in the 
history of the colonies, but established its traits in literature 
during the Revolution. 

Barlow died of exposure in 1812 in Poland, having 
become involved in the retreat of Napoleon's army from 
Moscow. 

Freneau was the most skilful of the Revolutionary 
versifiers. His patriotic rhymes are as weak and empty 
as those of his contemporaries, but he treated other 
themes with a graceful beauty that lifts him out of the 
common cry of rhymsters and gives him a distinctly 
different place in the history of American letters. A 
finer sense of propriety in style is at once discernible in 
^' The Indian Burying-Ground " and the " Wild Honey- 
suckle." Freneau was the first writer to detect the ele- 
ments of romance that resided in the picturesque savage of 
America, and in a few of his best poems anticipated, in 
slight measure, the great achievements of Cooper and 
Longfellow. 

The Hartford Wits. — It is not a little curious that the 
majority of the poets of the Revolution were natives of 
Connecticut and graduates of Yale College. Trumbull 
and Barlow were of that State and college, Freneau hav- 
ing been born in New York and educated with Madison at 



36 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the College of New Jersey. The close of the war found 
Hartford, Conn., the capital city of American poetry. The 
greatest of the colonial students of Yale, it will be remem- 
bered, was Jonathan Edwards. His grandson^ Timothy 
DwiGHT, born in 1752, was president of Yale from 1795 to 
1817, and published in 1785 at Hartford The Conquest of 
Canaan, sl poem in eleven books, which he had written 
eleven years before. It was a faithful imitation of the pop- 
ular English style, composed in ten-syllabled verses rhym- 
ing in pairs. It is in the highest degree artificial and mo- 
notonous, perhaps as prosy and as dull as the Columbiad 
itself. A better product of Dwight's muse was Greenfield 
Hill, a pretty account of the author's own Connecticut vil- 
lage. It was Dwight's son, Theodore, who was a central 
figure in the group of wits and brilliant thinkers who 
directly after the war, made Hartford a successful rival of 
Boston and Philadelphia for literary honors. The other 
stars of the constellation, " The Pleiades of Connecticut," 
were Trumbull, Barlow, David Humphreys, Richarp 
Alsop, Lemuel Hopkins, and Elihu Smith. 

In the great and bitter controversy which raged over the 
adoption of the Constitution the Hartford Wits supported 
the Federalist party with all their energy and skill. The 
Anarchiad was a series of sharply -pointed poems published 
by the wits in the Neiv Haven Gazette. The anarchy of the 
time immediately before the adoption of the Constitution 
was keenly satirized and happily amended by these vigor- 
ous political papers, which, according to their authors, were 
extracts from an old book on the " Restoration of Chaos 
and Substantial Night." The Echo and the Political Green 
House were somewhat similar publications of the same 
minds. 

Ballad-Writers. — Many of the sprightly ballads of the 
Revolution have completely disappeared, many are buried 
in the pages of forgotten newspapers ; some, which were 
vended on the streets, as Benjamin Franklin sold his, re- 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 37 

main in libraries and museums as historical curiosities in- 
teresting to the antiquary, but bare of all literary merit. 
" Yankee Doodle " came into vogue in this period. Francis 
HoPKiNSON composed a humorous ballad on the famous 
"Battle of the Kegs," commemorating the unique episode 
in the campaign at Philadelphia. It was his son Joseph 
who wrote the universally-known song " Hail Columbia.'' 
Other ballads were " Free America," " The Fate of Bur- 
goyne," " Wyoming Massacre," " Jack Bray," and " Bold 
Hawthorne." 

The Progress of Style. — When the spirit of poetry 
passed from Connecticut it reappeared in the nineteenth 
century in New York and in Boston. During the two pre- 
ceding centuries the subjects of poetry were occasionally 
original, but the style was always imitative. The writers 
who pleased the colonies chose English subjects, and wrote 
upon them as Englishmen would. Those who interested 
the Revolutionists also imitated the style of English writers, 
but preferred to select subjects of local American interest, 
and often succeeded in investing them with not a little of 
the native American spirit. The most successful and most 
thoughtful of the writers of the latter part of the eigh- 
teenth century did not dream of asserting their literary 
independence of the Old World and instituting new forms 
of poetry or prose. Philip Freneau said of the English 
writers who sneered at their fellow-craftsmen in America, 
"They are, however, excusable in treating the American 
authors as inferiors, a political and a literary independence 
of their nation being two very different things ; the first 
was accomplished in about seven years, the latter will not 
be completely effected perhaps in as many centuries." 
Fisher Ames declared in 1801 that it was quite impossible 
that there should ever be a national literature in America. 

The English people had gone through, in the two cen- 
turies during which America had been growing up to large 
and capable national life, the most momentous literary 



38 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

changes in their history. In 1600 they were at the height 
of their greatest period, the Elizabethan, and the language 
underwent a process of rapid evolution to meet the neces- 
sities of the hour and to express the national pride, the lofty 
thoughts, the high aspirations of the revival of learning. 
Toward the close of the century the literature declined 
from the heights it had reached under Queen, Elizabeth. 
Seeking after a more quiet style and more simple beauty, 
literature became affected and artificial and clothed itself in 
mannerisms. The classical style of Queen Anne was cre- 
ated. And it in turn was converted in the latter half of 
the eighteenth century into the romantic style, which has 
obtained throughout the present century. The earliest 
English writers in America perpetuated the traditions of 
the Elizabethan age, and our colonial books therefore are 
full of the vigorous, vivid, figurative language of the time 
of Shakespeare. The selection from Cotton Mather on 
literary style * suggests the transition to the Queen- Anne 
manner. The learned mastodon of Boston protests against 
the decay of the "massy style ''in which he had been in- 
structed. The quotation from Franklin f illustrates the 
new^ style which supervened upon the massive structure of 
the Elizabethans. The Revolutionist poets found their 
models in the writers that clustered round the court of 
Queen Anne and the person of Alexander Pope. The re- 
sult was a bare, meagre poetry, redeemed only by racy 
humor and unmistakable earnestness of purpose. 

The first dawn of the new day was in New York. On 
the threshold of the nineteenth century, before its first 
decade is completed, we confront our first man of letters, 
the first finished artist who upon this continent lived for 
literature and compelled the attention of European culture. 

* See page 1 67. f See page 168, 




CHAPTER III. 
The New York Writers. 

1809-1832. 

Washington Irving (1783-1859).—" Thirty years ago 
he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon trip- 
ping with an elastic step along Broadway, with low-quar- 
tered shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak, a short garment 
that hung from the shoulders like the cape of a coat. 
There was a chirping, cheery, old-school air in his appear- 
ance which was undeniably Dutch and most harmonious 
with the associations of his writings." In these words 
George William Curtis has described our first American 
author, "in his habit as he lived." Washington Irving, 
while by no means the greatest or most important of our 
writers, does, without doubt, deserve the honorable and 
imposing title of Father of American Literature. 

Jonathan Edwards for his logic, and Franklin for his 
political sagacity, had been admired in Europe, but in 
Washington Irving was for the first time recognized an 
American writer of rare genius and unquestionable lite- 
rary skill. His imagination played upon the homely sub- 
jects of our new and rude country, and invested them 
with the grace and glamour of romance. He won the 
admiration of England's most severe critics by the purity 
and perfection of his style. From him our literature 
dates, for before him no American (with the exception of 

39 



40 ' AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Charles Brockden Brown) had lived for literature, had 
cultivated it for its own sake, and acknowledged no 
ulterior purpose, political or polemical. 

Irving himself wrote : " It has been a matter of marvel 
to my European readers that a man from the wilds of 
America should express himself in tolerable English. I 
was looked upon as something new and strange in lite- 
rature — a kind of demi-savage with a feather in his hand, 
instead of on his head, and there was a curiosity to hear 
what such a being had to say about civilized society." 

In Dutch New York, Washington Irving was born, 
April 3, 1783. Washington's army occupied the city, the 
war was over, and the child born in the happy year of 
peace was given the renowned name of the first Presi- 
dent. The New York of 1783 had less than twenty-five 
thousand inhabitants, and covered a narrow strip of land 
which is now the extreme southern point of the great 
metropolis. The Dutch and English residents mingled lit- 
tle with each other. From the quaint gabled houses of the 
town, with its ancient burghers dozing on benches at the 
doors of their whitewashed houses, the boy Irving wan- 
dered almost daily into remote regions of Dutch myth and 
mystery, for already the drowsy imagination of the Knick- 
erbockers had created strange stories about the Hudson 
and Hell-Gate and the Catskills, and, indeed, about all the 
neighboring country. Irving did not follow his brothers 
to Columbia College. When sixteen years old he entered 
a lawyer's office, but read more poetry than law. He was 
allowed his own way in these and other matters, for his 
delicate health had for years been the cause of serious con- 
cern to his family. With gun and dog he explored the 
wilderness of New York and voyaged up the Hudson. 
These outings and ramblings temporarily reinforced his 
physical strength and stored his mind with material for 
future use. 

As Franklin's first compositions were unsigned commu- 



TEE NEW YORK WRITERS, 41 

nications to his brother's newspaper, so Irving's first pub- 
lications were letters purporting to be by one Jonathan 
Oldstyle, contributed in 1802 to the Morning Chronicle^ a 
newspaper conducted by his brother Peter. 

In 1804, Irving sailed for Europe to try what the climate 
of the southern countries and of the Mediterranean could 
do for his health. For two years he visited the ancient 
homes of art and culture : the provincial New Yorker be- 
came a citizen of the world. In 1806 he returned to New 
York. One of his brothers had married the sister of 
James Kirke Paulding, and now Irving, his brother Wil- 
liam, and Paulding began the publication of a semi- 
monthly periodical called Salmagundi. Its purpose was 
" to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, 
and castigate the age." In these papers Irving appears, 
under the pen-name of Launcelot Langstaff, as a success- 
ful imitator of Addison. Hardly was Salmagundi discon- 
tinued before Irving had conceived the plan of a burlesque 
history of New York. It was published in 1809 : A His- 
tory of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. It pur- 
ported to be a sober history of manners and customs 
under the Dutch governors. It was even gravely dedi- 
cated to the New York Historical Society. The book was 
at once successful. Its broad fun was very contagious. 
Sir Walter Scott praised it, the world read it and laughed. 
It is a masterpiece of humor, as perfect in its way as any- 
thing of Swift or Sterne, and as pure in style as Defoe. 

In England and on the continent of Europe Irving 
lived from 1815 to 1832. His fine nature was strangely 
stirred by the historical associations of the classic soil of 
England. He had been educated from infancy in the lite- 
rature of Great Britain, and when actually in contact with 
the world about which he had been all his life reading 
and thinking, inefiFaceable impressions were made upon 
his sympathetic nature. " I have never yet," he said, 
" grown familiar enough with the crumbling monuments 



42 AMERICAN LITER A TUBE, 

of past ages to blunt the interest with which I at first be- 
held them." Again: "I was continually coming upon 
some little document of poetry, in the blossomed haw- 
thorn, the daisy, the cowslip, the primrose, or some other 
simple object, that has received a supernatural value from 

the muse I shall never forget the thrill of ecstasy 

with which I first saw the lark rise, almost from beneath 
my feet, and wing its musical flight up into the morning 
sky." The first book published by Irving in England 
combined, as we would expect, both the old subjects and 
the new. It was The Sketch-Book, published in 1819-20, 
and continued the romances of old New York in the im- 
mortal tales of "Rip Van Winkle "and the " Legend of 
Sleepy Hollow," and illustrated all the author's enthu- 
siasm for England in the fine essays on Westminster 
Abbe}^ and Stratford-on-Avon. 

Sketches and stories of English life continued to ap- 
pear in Bracebridge Hall (1822) and Tales of a Traveller 
(1824). 

In Spain, from 1826 to 1829, Irving was absorbed 
in literary work, and produced the most important and 
most fascinating of his books. He undertook first the 
Life of Columbus, His studies for this acquainted him 
with the ancient romance of Spain and the stormy days of 
Moorish rule. He found the fascination of the subject 
strong upon him, and put the brilliant deeds and splendid 
history of mediaeval Spain into four other books — Conquest 
of Granada, Alhambra, Moorish Chronicles, and Legends of 
the Conquest of Spain, Glittering pageants of Moorish war- 
riors, the castellated palace of the Moors, Ferdinand and 
Isabella, Saracen and Christian, the sound and stir of bat- 
tles and triumphs, the swift succession of dazzling pictures, 
fill these books with a permanent and priceless interest. 

The enthusiasm of the past was upon him while he 
wrote. The facts which he gleaned with industry and toil 
from old chronicles were developed and combined in the 



THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 43 

dreamy air of the Alhambra itself, which for these years 
was Irving's residence. 

In 1829 he resumed his London life, as secretary of the 
legation to the court of St. James. Honors were lavished 
upon him. He was petted and admired by all circles of 
society and of literature. The Royal Society of Litera- 
ture awarded him a gold medal in 1830, and the Univer- 
sity of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of 
Civil Laws, in recognition of his great services to history 
and literature in his group of Spanish books. 

In 1832, after an absence of seventeen years, he returned 
to New York. 

On the Prairies and in the great West, Irving found 
himself soon after his return to America. Seventeen years 
had wTought great changes in the country. Vast currents 
of emigration were turning westward. Irving's first desire 
was to acquaint himself with the entire countrj^ To grat- 
ify his curiosity, therefore, he undertook an extensive tour 
beyond the outposts of civilized life into the wilderness of 
the Far West. In 1835 some of his experiences and obser- 
vations were published in a Tour on the Prairies, 

For John Jacob Astor he wrote an account of the fur- 
trade in the North and North-west, under the title of As- 
toria, and completed his sketches of wild American life in 
The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 

During this period, also, WolferVs Roost was published^ 
containing stray papers contributed to the Knickerbocker 
Magazine. 

At Sunny side. — In 1842, Irving was sent as minister 
to Spain, where he remained for four years. On his re- 
turn, in 1846, he made his home at Sunnyside, near Tarry- 
town. He was close to Old Sleepy Hollow and in one of 
the loveliest retreats on the Hudson. Here, surrounded 
by friends, he lived the last peaceful years of his serene 
and gentle life. Here he wrote his last group of books, 
the biographies. First came Mahomet and his Succes- 



44 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

sors, a work of inferior merit. Then followed the Life oj 
Goldsmith, a sympathetic and touching delineation of that 
vagrant, thriftless, lovable child of genius, whose style and 
humor so often find an echo in the pages of his genial 
biographer. 

Last of the biographies, most laborious, though not the 
most successful, is the Life of Washington, minute in its 
incidents, careful in its judgments, and faithful in its 
clear portraiture of the great central figure of the Revolu- 
tion. 

Washington Irving died on the 28th of November, 1859. 

Irving's Subjects. — Three places have been so touched 
by the magic of Irving's genius that they have derived from 
him immortal renown ; they are Sleepy Hollow, on the 
Hudson ; the Red Horse Inn, at Stratford-on-Avon ; and 
the Alhambra, in Spain. These places have been ren- 
dered sacred by him ; they are objects which travellers 
make great journeys to visit. They represent the three 
chief interests of Irving's mind and tlie three chief sub- 
jects of all his varied writings. He began by translat- 
ing the silver thread of the Hudson and the picturesque 
land through which it is drawn into a vision of romantic 
interest, and by spending his rich humor on old Dutch 
drolleries and scenes of early Knickerbocker history. 
His earliest work was creative and imaginative, and the 
prime element in it humor — humor boisterous at first in 
the History of New York, more restrained and refined in the 
Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon. The tatterdemalion Rip 
Van Winkle and the whimsical Ichabod Crane are as dis- 
tinct additions to literature as anything from Dickens or 
from Thackeray. 

The second group of Irving's books consists entirely 
of exquisite descriptions of English rural life. By a 
single essay he has for all time identified himself with 
Stratford-on-Avon, and made his memory as potent there 
as that of Shakespeare himself. 



' THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 45 

To the third group belong those briUiant studies in the 
chivalrous history of Spain and the final shock of arms 
between the magnificent armies of Asia and Europe. 

Irving-'s Style. — When Irving delighted England with 
the Sketch-Book in 1820, Byron and Scott were the idols of 
the English people. The former had already done his best 
work ; the latter was in the full maturity of his unrivalled 
powers. Indeed, in this very year (1820) Ivanhoe was pub- 
lished. What were the qualities of style that gained for 
the unknown American the applause of the people, the 
respect of Byron, and the regard of Scott ? 

1. Suavity and Elegance. — By " suavity" is meant his un- 
failing good nature, his sympathy, his gentleness of cha- 
racter, which expressed itself in amiable prose. Irving 
always addressed himself to the sympathetic side of hu- 
man nature. His humor was without bitterness ; no per- 
sonal spite or rancor ever entered his work. By " ele- 
gance" is meant the graceful ease with which every sub- 
ject, story or history, was handled. There was no show nor 
display, but an easy flow of carefully chosen words and 
admirably constructed sentences. 

2. Humor. — Irving's humor is the first quality to be ap- 
preciated in his works. It is unregulated in Salmagundi, 
boisterous and at times over-broad in the History of New 
York, but under perfect control and restraint in the 
Sketch-Book and later publications. It abounds in every- 
thing he has written. It is a natural overflow of the high 
spirits and kindly nature of the generous author. 

3. Clearness and Simplicity. — Irving is conspicuously 
lacking in the energy which other and later writers show. 
His style bears no marks of straining nor of overdressing. 
We very rarely find in him examples of inverted sentences 
or repeated phrases. He certainly had not the power of 
construction. He could not devise and execute the plan of 
a long story. But when he clearly saw an incident he 
could set it down in language of crystal clearness and sim- 



46 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

plicity. It was, in great part, this refreshing quality that 
in an age of unrestrained diction and increasing obscurity 
made his works so popular in England. 

Irving falls short of being a great writer because of the 
superficial nature of his work, because of his lack of lite- 
rary inspiration, which causes his style at times to descend 
from the artistic to ,the commonplace, and because of the 
absence of all scientific method from his histories, and 
of serious purpose from his essays. 

The Knickerbocker School is a name often used to 
denote the early New York writers. The progress of lite- 
rature in America is from Boston in the colonial times to 
Hartford in the Revolutionary period, and to New York in 
the earliest years of the nineteenth century. The prin- 
cipal writers of the New York group, of which Irving was 
the head, were James Kirke Paulding, James Fenimore 
Cooper, Joseph Rodman Drake, Fitz-Greene Halleck, 
William Cullen Bryant, and N. P. Willis. 

All these were residents of New York, but two only, 
Drake and Irving, were born in the city. 

James Kirke Paulding" (1779-1860) was associated 
with Irving in the writing of Salmagundi. His bright 
humor made him a worthy companion of Irving. His 
patriotism and quick eye for local interests entitle him to a 
place in that important group of writers who first gave an 
original flavor to our literature and interested two conti- 
nents in stories and songs of American life. But Pauld- 
ing has faded almost entirely from our memories. It is 
remembered that he was once Secretary of the Navy, and 
that he wrote The Dutchman's Fireside (1831). The humor 
and pathos of the book are alike forgotten. Paulding had 
not the artistic sense, nor the care for literary finish which 
are necessary to ensure long life for a book. The liveli- 
ness and humor which we find in him, and in almost all 
the Knickerbockers, is the natural reaction from the re- 



THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 47 

straint and severe dulness of the Puritan theologians. 
One other of Paulding's books, popular in its day, but 
never opened now, was The Diverting History of John Bull 
and Brother Jonathan (1812), a clever satire upon England, 
in the style of Arbuthnot's John Bull (1713), which in its 
turn was modelled upon Swift's Tale of a Tub, 

The Novel. — Before considering the next writer of the 
Knickerbocker School it will be necessary to understand 
the meaning and the history of that form of literary com- 
position which we call " the novel." When the first Vir- 
ginian and Massachusetts colonists arrived here literature 
in England was at its height. The most important pro- 
ductions of that time were dramas. The drama is a repre- 
sentation of human passions in action. After the drama 
declined, prose fiction arose. This was about the middle 
of the eighteenth century. The three writers who then 
began the long line of modern British novelists were 
Fielding, Smollett, and Richardson. 

The novel is so comprehensive, and has so many possi- 
bilities, that it is hard to define it. It embraces all classes 
of prose fiction, from the wild tales of extravagant romance 
to the simple stories of quiet realism. " The novel ar- 
ranges and combines round the passion of love and its 
course between two or more persons, a number of events 
and characters which in their action on one another 
develop the plot of the story and bring about a sad or 
a happy close " (Brooke). 

The French Revolution aroused in England an interest 
in political and social problems, and this interest expressed 
itself in a new kind of novels. Most remarkable of the 
novelists of this class was the philosopher William God- 
win, father-in-law of the poet Shelley. He is best known 
by his novel of Caleb Williams. 

Our First Novelist, Charles Brockden Brown (1771- 
1810), was an admirer and follower of Godwin. He was 



48 AMEBICAN LITERATURE, 

born in Philadelphia in 1771, but became a resident of 
New York in 1798. In the latter year he published his first 
novel, Wieland, and in the next three years issued five other 
romances. Brown's tales are really romances. They deal 
with sombre subjects, with improbable passions and ex- 
periences. The imaginary and the supernatural are the 
most frequent elements in his works. Wieland is a story 
of ghastly crime occasioned by a ventriloquist, who, by 
personating a supernatural being, induces the hero to mur- 
der his wife and children. His third novel, Arthur Mervyn, 
contains vivid descriptions of the yellow-fever pestilence 
in Philadelphia in 1793. In Edgar Huntley the author 
follows the fortunes of a somnambulist in the gloomy moun- 
tain-fastnesses of Western Pennsylvania. The plots of 
these romances are crude, and their style careless and im- 
mature. The sentences are short, and the words often 
unusual and inappropriate. But great credit is due to 
Brown for having discovered the capabilities of romance in 
our new land, and for having used in all his books Amer- 
ican characters and scenery. Ghostly stories of crime and 
supernatural agencies were common when he began to 
write. It was the time of Lewis's Romantic Tales and 
Tales of Terror^ of Walpole's Castle of Otranto, and of 
Beckford's Vathek. Brown, however, treated his subjects 
with so much power that the poet Shelley, into whose 
hands these American fictions fell, was greatly influenced 
by them. Brown anticipated Poe, and in his descriptions 
of the wilderness, its savage beasts and men, he prepared 
the way for Cooper. 

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851).— In 1820, or in 
the same year that Irving's Sketch-Book appeared in Eng- 
land, Cooper published his first novel. He extended the 
originality of Irving to subjects more distinctly American. 
He was " the second writer to show to the world that we 
were to have a literature of our own." Sir Walter 
Scott had written the best of his " Waverley " novels, 



THE NEW YORK WRITERS, 49 

and had just completed Ivanhoe^ when Cooper appeared 
with his first book. Scott, in his romances, drew from 
a rich store of ancient Scottish history ; Cooper had no 
such historic past to look back upon, but he invented 
for America the novel of adventure, and put into literature 
the picturesque life of the forest and the sea. 

In the Wilderness. — Cooper was born in Burlington, 
New Jersey, September 15, 1789. His father, Judge 
Cooper, at the close of the Revolutionary War, came into 
the possession of large tracts of land on Lake Otsego, near 
the head-waters of the Susquehanna. There he made his 
permanent home when the future novelist was but one year 
old. Cooperstown, as the place was called, was in the 
primeval forest of New York. Young Cooper grew up on 
the frontier of the wilderness, and in a village yet new 
from the settler's axe. Out of this solitude he was sent to 
Yale College. He proved a dilatory and intractable stu- 
dent. His early associations had created a love for out- 
door life and wild scenery that was stronger in him than 
his affection for books and learning. He was dismissed 
from college in his third year. 

On the Sea. — In 1806, Cooper shipped as a common 
sailor on a merchant vessel. In a year's time he saw 
much hard service " before the mast." In 1808 he entered 
the navy. He remained for three years in the service of 
the Government, when he married and returned to his 
forest-home. 

His First Novel was the result of a mere accident. An' 
English society novel had come in his way, and he was 
reading it to his wife, when, being dissatisfied with the 
book, he laid it down, saying, " I believe I could write a 
better story myself." The result was the novel entitled 
Precaution^ published in New York in 1820. 

The story conceived by such curious chance was per- 
haps as good as the ordinary society novel. But it is dull 
to the last degree, and is now fortunately forgotten. There 



50 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

is, however, an historical interest about Precaution, It is 
not without significance that Cooper began his literary 
career by writing a story of English social life. The de- 
pendence of America upon England before 1820 had been 
so complete that nothing was deemed of any value that 
was not English in its origin or character. To furnish a 
good imitation of a foreign book was the highest ideal of 
an American writer. Cooper in his first book was no more 
original than most of his contemporaries. He not only 
chose English social life for the subject of his story (a 
subject about which he knew nothing), but actually 
pretended that the book was written by an English- 
man. 

*'The Spy." — Cooper's literary life illustrates the his- 
tory of our national literature. As that history rose from 
servile imitation in the colonial period into a little brisk- 
ness and pungency during the Revolution, and to origi- 
nality of style and subject in the present century, so 
Cooper advanced from the shallow copy of an English 
novel of manners to the familiar details of our Revolution, 
and thence to the free expression in literature of the life of 
sea and forest. PrecaiUion had not been entirely a failure. 
Cooper's friends urged him to try again, and to take a sub- 
ject with which he was more familiar. He took an episode 
from the Revolution. The scene was in Westchester, 
which had been during the war neutral ground between 
the English and American forces. The book was The 
Spy (1821). It contained the humble but noble and 
patriotic character of Harvey Birch, one of the author's 
best creations. The success of The Spy was remarkable. 
English critics received it kindly, and on its appearance in 
France it excited enthusiasm which continues unabated 
after more than sixty years. 

The Leather-Stocking Tales. — The success of The 
Spy clearly showed Cooper what his career was to be. He 
was conscious that he possessed the power of delighting 



THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 51 

readers with the witchery of hterary skill. In selecting a 
subject for a third novel he chose the picturesque scenes 
and homely incidents of the frontier life with which in 
childhood he had been so familiar. The book was The 
Pioneers^ and appeared in 1823. In it he dwelt fondly 
upon all the old events and common scenes of a back- 
woodsman's life. Its success was immediate. In it ap- 
peared for the first time the immortal figure of Natty 
Bumppo (Leather-Stocking). Without doubt Leather- 
Stocking is the one great original character with which 
America has enriched the world's literature. Cooper pre- 
sented this imposing character, who is a magnificent reali- 
zation of the early pioneers, in four other books, compris- 
ing the Leather- Stocking Tales, His life stands in them com- 
plete, from the first war-path to his old age and death. 
The order in which the tales were written is not the logical 
order, or that in which they should be read. The best ar- 
rangement, or that by which the story of the hero's life 
may be continuously followed, is The Deerslayer^ The Last 
of the Mohicans^ The Pathfinder^ The Pioneers^ and The 
Prairie, [It may be noted that this is also the alphabetical 
order.] The greatest of these, and the crowning works of 
Cooper's genius, are The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder, 

Among Cooper's other tales of the wilderness are to be 
noted The Wept of Wish-ton- Wish, Wyandotte, and the Red- 
skins, In his delineation of Indian life Cooper is without 
a peer. He has fixed for ever in literature the character of 
a vanishing race. " Throughout the whole civilized world 
the conception of the Indian character as Cooper drew it 
in The Last of the Mohicans, and further elaborated it in the 
later Leather-Stocking Tales, has taken a permanent hold on 
the imaginations of men" (Lounsbury). 

The Sea-Stories.— Sir Walter Scott had published 
The Pirate in 1821. Cooper, with his experience as a 
sailor, saw at once that the author was a landsman. At a 
dinner in New York he argued to that effect against the 



52 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

opinion of the company. He contended that even where 
the author's facts were right he would have made a better 
and more effective use of them if he had had personal 
knowledge of life on the ocean. The outcome of the argu- 
ment was a book entitled The Pilot, In this book Cooper 
created the sea-story. Into it and its successors Cooper 
put with great success his knowledge of naval manoeuvres 
and of the handling of ships. Captain Marryat, Clark 
Russell, and all the host of novelists who have composed 
sea-stories are debtors to Cooper. The time of The Pilot 
is the American Revolution. The pilot himself is John 
Paul Jones. The finest character of the book, and one of 
Cooper's best, is Long Tom Coffin of Nantucket. 

The Red Rover is in many respects the best of Cooper's 
sea-tales. Others, published at various dates, are — The 
Water- Witch, Wing and Wing (story of a French privateer 
in the Mediterranean), The Two Admirals, Jack Tier, The 
Crater, The Sea-Lions (hunting for seals in southern seas, 
winter in the Antarctic Ocean), and Afloat and Ashore, 
with its sequel. Miles Wallingford, The last two are partly 
autobiographic. 

Other Novels. — Satanstoe, a capital book, is an admira,- 
ble account of colonial life in New York. The Chainbearer 
is a sequel to it. JLomeward Bound and its sequel, Home 
as Found, are books of very unequal merit : the first is a 
good sea-story, the other an unreasonable criticism of 
American manners. Lionel Lincoln contains a faithful and 
excellent description of the battle of Bunker Hill. Mer- 
cedes of Castile narrates the first voyage of Columbus. The 
remainder of Cooper's novels, too poor to deserve com- 
ment or to merit reading, are The Heidenmauer, The Heads- 
man, Oak Openings, The Monikins, and Ways of the Hour, 

Death of Cooper. — On September 14, 1851, Cooper 
died at Cooperstown. A marble statue of Leather-Stock- 
ing, with dog and gun, overlooks his grave, and near by, 
on Lake Otsego, plies the little steamer " Natty Bumppo." 



THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 53 

Cooper, like Irving, rests amid the scenes he has made 
classic. 

Cooper's Subjects. — As Charles Brockden Brown 
followed William Godwin, so Cooper was a follower of 
Sir Walter Scott. He was frequently called by his con- 
temporaries the " American Scott." But this must not be 
understood to mean that Cooper was a conscious imitator 
of the great English novelist. Both composed romances ; 
both were authors of the " novel of adventure ;" both 
achieved popularity. They were alike in the rapidity 
with which they added book to book, but they were 
very unlike in the literary value of their products. 
Cooper was one of the most unequal of writers. Some of 
his works are so tedious and so barren of all literary 
charm as to be quite unreadable. Of his thirty-two novels, 
ten are of this character. 

In the mind of Washington Irving we discovered three 
chief interests— first, the Dutch traditions of New York; 
second, the historic and literary associations of England ; 
third, the romance of Spain. These three subjects became 
the centres for three groups of books. The differences of 
subject in the works of Irving and of Cooper correspond to 
the different characters of the two men. Irving was gen- 
tle, scholarly, refined; Cooper elemental, forceful, pas- 
sionate, loving the vast ocean and the endless forest. The 
serene days of Irving contrast strongly with the stormy, 
quarrelsome life of Cooper. 

After eliminating the ten worthless books from Cooper's 
collection, it will be found that ten of the remaining 
twenty-two novels are sea-stories, and eight are tales of the 
wilderness. Two have the Revolution for their subject — 
The Spy and Lionel Lincoln — and two are devoted to old 
colonial life in New York — Satanstoe and The Chain- 
bearer, 

Cooper's Style. — Cooper wrote too much to write 
everything well. He composed in great haste, and many 



54 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

of his works betray such carelessness as to deserve to be 
called slovenly. The faults of his style are so glaring as 
to need comment before his merits : 

1. His most venial fault is his careless and blundering 
English. He ignores the nicer distinctions of language. 
He confuses his grammar, and frequently strains the mean- 
ings of words or chooses the wrong word when the right 
one is close at hand. 

2. His worst fault is his lack of clearness and of method 
in the evolution of a plot. 

(a) Cooper does not impress us, as the great romancers 
do, with the sense of probability in the incidents of his 
story. Worse than that, the plot has no unity nor centre. 
It does not work up to a natural climax, nor bring its 
characters and events to a natural close. We demand a 
continuity of interest in a romance, and a clear develop- 
ment of its plot through the various incidents of its prog- 
ress. Cooper often does not appear to have foreseen the 
end of his books from the beginning. He is driven to in- 
troduce new characters and digress upon strange incidents 
in order to dispose finally of his romance and successfully 
conclude the plot. Hence the contradictions and incon- 
gruities which abound in his books. 

(6) His verboseness is a minor defect in his art which 
adds to the tediousness of his story-telling. 

3. An intermediate fault is his polemic spirit. He is as 
controversial as the first Puritans. His criticisms of 
American manners and of our national tendencies in- 
truded themselves into all his books. Sometimes they 
were so light as to be pardonable ; sometimes so violent 
and continuous as to be offensive. Cooper was engaged 
during the last years of his life in a war with his country, 
which brought down upon him the hatred of the press and 
the ill-opinion of his fellow-countrymen. Several of his 
poorer books, as the Monikins and Home as Found, were ser- 
mons preached to the American people. His protests 



THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 55 

were too angry and ill-conceived to be effectual, and the 
books which contained them are now seldom read. 
Cooper's merits, like his defects, are quickly discovered. 

1. Narrative Power. — There is a native force in Cooper 
which captures the reader and holds his attention, in the 
best books, to the end. All men love a good story-teller. 
Cooper's vigorous imagination and fresh, lively way of tell- 
ing his story is the secret of his popularity with the masses. 
His characters are often weak. He cares more for the rush 
of incident than for the slower sketching of minute de- 
tails of character. Hence the cause of much of the adverse 
criticism upon his works. The old novel of adventure is a 
little out of fashion. The wholesome battlepieces of 
Cooper have given place to studies of society and exercises 
in the analysis of motive and of character. For these 
things Cooper had neither genius nor knowledge. But in 
the kind of fiction that he chose to write he has but one 
superior, and that one is the greatest of the world's 
romancers — Sir Walter Scott. 

2. Enthusiasm for Nature. — Cooper's style is everywhere 
assisted and elevated by the author's genuine enthusiasm 
for wild nature. He is entirely national in his descrip- 
tions of the lonely and magnificent scenery of his country. 
The ocean and the forest are the two Avorlds which his 
fancy explored. In the first he created the novel of the 
sea ; in the second, as Lowell wrote of him — 

" He has drawn you one character, though, that is new ; 
One wild flower he's plucked that is wet with the dew 
Of this fresh Western World." ^ 

Drake and Halleck. — There is no more pleasing epi- 
sode in the history of our literature than the friendship of 
the two poets, Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) and 
Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867). The former was a 
native of New York City ; he was born in 1795. Halleck 

■^ Leather-Stocking. 



56 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

was five years older, and was born at Guilford, Conn. In 
1811, Halleck became a resident of New York, and found 
employment in a counting-room. Two years later, or in 
the spring of 1813, he and Drake met, and their friendship 
began. 

Drake's fame rests entirely upon one poem. Cooper, 
Drake, and Halleck had been talking about the Ameri- 
can rivers and the poetry which might be written about 
them. Drake's thoughts continued to dwell upon the 
theme, and his quick fancy conceived and finished the 
delicate poem. The Culprit Fay. It was written in August, 
1816, but was not published until 1819. It is a dainty 
little poem, whose melody has been caught from Coleridge 
and from Moore. Its subject is in the land of faery, 
though its scene is in the Highlands of the Hudson or in 
the land of Rip Van Winkle. The Culprit Fay [faery] has 
fallen in love with a mortal. He is tried and sentenced to 
purge his wings with a drop from the glistening arch when 
" the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine," and to re- 
illume his flame-wood lamp with the last faint spark from 
the trail of a shooting star. 

In 1819, Drake and Halleck formed a literary partner- 
ship, and produced a series of witty and satirical poems 
called " The Croaker Papers." They were contributed 
anonymously to the New York Evening Post. The best 
known of Drake's pieces in the " Croaker " papers is The 
American Flag, beginning with the lines : 

" When Freedom, from her mountain-height, 
Unfurled her standard to the air, 
She tore the azure robe of night 
And set the stars of glory there." 

Drake died of consumption Sept. 21, 1820. His death 
was mourned by Halleck in one of the most precious 
poems of our literature. 

In 1819, when Drake published The Culprit Fay, Halleck 



THE NEW YORK WBITERS. 57 

printed his longest poem, Fanny ^ an amusing satire on the 
fashions and follies of the time. After a trip to Europe, 
Halleck published the few fine lyrics that have given him 
his reputation, Alnwick Castle^ Burns, and Marco Bozzaris. 
After the death of John Jacob Astor, in whose office he 
had been for many years, Halleck retired to his native 
Guilford. He continued to wTite verses of small merit 
until his death, in 1867. 

Neither Drake nor Halleck were WTiters of the first order. 
Drake gave promise of excellence in melody and in imagi- 
nation which was destined to remain unfulfilled. Halleck 
is signalized by directness and energy of language, bright 
fancy, and pleasant satire. To illustrate the service that 
they rendered to our literature it is only necessary to com= 
pare for a moment the tedious, prosy rhymes of Barlow, 
Dwight, and the Revolutionists with the gay and pungent 
verses of " Croaker and Co.'' 

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878).— As 1809, the 
year of Diedrich Knickerbocker, is the first date in our true 
American prose, so 1817 is the first date in our true Amer- 
ican poetry. It is the year of the publication, in the North 
American Revietv, of Bryant's " Thanatopsis." Bryant is to 
our native imaginative poetry what Irving is to our native 
prose. His fame does not depend, like Drake's, upon a 
single poem, nor, like Halleck's, upon a few successful 
lyrics, but is genuine and secure because it is the reward of 
a long and complete literary career marked by a series of 
poems of uniform excellence. The products of his life 
need no apology nor recommendation, even when judged 
by high critical standards. Where other poets had suc- 
ceeded by accident, he succeeded by sheer poetic genius. 
Where others in earlier years had contentedly copied foreign 
writers or painfully felt their way toward some degree of orig- 
inality , Bryant pursued his solitary way absorbed in the con- 
templation of American scenery and creating poems which 
nobly expressed the depth and dignity of his character. 



58 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, 
Mass., Nov. 3, 1794. He was educated for two years at 
Williams College. He studied law, and for a few years 
practised his profession, but in a half-hearted way. He 
deplored the necessity that forced him '' to toil for the 
dregs of men, and scrawl strange words with the barbarous 
pen " (" Green River "). In 1825 he removed to New York, 
and in the following year he became editor of the Evening 
Post. From 1827 to 1829 he was associated with G. C. 
Verplanck and R. C. Sands in the writing of an 
"Annual" called The Talisman. An edition of his poems 
was published in England in 1832 through the influence 
of Washington Irving. In 1870-71 he published a note- 
worthy translation of the Iliad and Odyssey. He died on 
the 12th of June, 1878. 

Bryant's Early Poems. — Like many another poet, 
Bryant began rhyming at a tender age. In his father's 
library he had often read the artificial verses of Pope, who 
was then the favorite poet of New England readers. In 
1808 the fourteen-year-old boy published, in the style of 
Pope, a poem called The Embargo. It was a satire upon 
Thomas Jeff'erson and the embargo which in the previous 
year had been laid upon American shipping. The verses 
are of no value, but are interesting as illustrating the 
author's early facility in poetic composition. 

TJianatopsis marks the beginning of our poetry. It was 
published in the North American Review in September, 
1817, but was written in 1812. The Greek word coined 
for the title suggests the subject of the poem — " a vision of 
death." The author's thought lingers upon the soothing 
influences of nature, and, wandering abroad in the uni- 
verse, contemplates the ebb and flow of the generations of 
men. There is no direct mention of immortality in the 
poem ; only the stern spectacle of the present life and its 
inevitable end. The solemnity and maturity of the poem 
are unsurpassed in literature, and are wonderful as emanat- 



THE NEW YORK WRITERS, 59 

ing from a boy of seventeen. The style, too, sustains the 
dignity of the lofty theme. It is written in blank verse, 
and that difficult measure has never been more skilfully 
and powerfully handled by any American poet. 

In 1821, in the same year with The Spy and the English 
edition of the Sketch-Book^ Bryant published a small vol- 
ume, containing his longest poem, "The Ages." Like 
" Thanatopsis," it is a vision^ but this time of the pano- 
rama of history. Its high-hearted patriotism is its most 
distinguished mark. 

Bryant's Poetry. — Natural scenery was Bryant's prin- 
cipal interest. He has been called the " American Words- 
worth," because his love of nature was so genuine and his 
descriptions of it so frequent. His landscapes are always 
American. They are not pictures that might be true in 
any land, but they are faithful delineations of the peculiar 
features of American scenery. He is most successful 
when describing " old ocean's gray and melancholy waste," 
or " the hills rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun," or " the 
dim forest crowded with old oaks." His finest poems are 
inspired by the familiar things of nature. The lines " To 
a Waterfowl," " Green River," " The Death of the Flow- 
ers," " The Evening Wind," have their human interest and 
sympathy, but that which is best in them is the true feel- 
ing for even the humble and minute in nature. The 
" Song of Marion's Men " is a delightful account of the 
romantic life of the South Carolina Robin Hood and his 
band, but it was the love of the forest, " the good green- 
wood," that prompted Bryant to the subject. 

Bryant was not dramatic. He did not carefully study 
character nor disturb himself with problems of the mind. 
He had no gifts as a story-teller, and hence the principal 
fault in his translation of Homer. It lacks movement, 
variety, and energy. 

He wrote some patriotic ballads memorable for the sin- 
cere love of liberty which burns in them. Such are 



60 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

" Italy," '' Not Yet," " Greek Partisan," and " The Massa- 
cre at Scio." 

Nobility of subject and dignity of form, characterize the 
work of Bryant in all periods of his life. The dignity of 
form is seen at its best in his masterly use of the ten- 
syllabled unrhymed line which we call blank verse. It is 
used with splendid effect in " Thanatopsis," '' Forest 
Hymn," and " Antiquity of Freedom." 

Amid the changes of literary fashion and the rise of new 
ideals during his long career, Bryant held his serene course, 
developing with care and patience a style which, though 
not original, was well adapted to the needs of his verse and 
the character of his thought. 

One fault of Bryant's poetry is its preaching tendency. 
He does not sing, as poets should, with no afterthought. 
He rarely lets a subject go without appending to it a moral. 
It was a consequence of his early New England training, 
an effect of Puritanism from which he never escaped. 

Bryant's mind was naturally solemn and lofty. His 
thought was sombre, and but little touched with those 
closer sympathies which win the hearts of men. He 
kindled no enthusiasms, but he, first among our writers, 
upheld pure ideals of the poet's task, and amid all the dis- 
tractions of his political and practical life never departed 
from the high and earnest purposes of literature. 

Minor Writers.— N. P. Willis (1806-67) made his 
home in New York, and in journalism and in society aided 
in the development of literature. His own writings are 
almost completely neglected. He wrote a few sacred 
poems and a number of books of travel, of which the best, 
perhaps, is Pencillings by the Way, 

Geo. p. Morris (1802-64) and Samuel Woodworth 
(1785-1842) founded in 1823 the New York Mirror, for 
twenty years a useful literary journal. Morris wrote the 
popular " Woodman, Spare that Tree," and Woodworth 
the equally popular " Old Oaken Bucket." 



THE NEW YORK WRITERS, 61 

Payne and the Dramatists. — John Howard Payne 
was born in New York City, 1792 ; died in Tunis, Africa, 
1852. He was both actor and playwright. Of the great 
number of his plays, two only are now acted : Brutus and 
Charles IL His fame is, however, perpetual by reason of 
the song of " Home, Sweet Home," which formed part of 
his play of The Maid of Milan, 

The first American comedy produced upon the stage 
was The Contrast, performed in New York in 1786. It was 
the first work of Royall Tyler (1757-1826). 

The list of American dramas is brief and uninteresting. 
Compositions like Metamora (J. A. Stone) and The Gladi- 
ator (R. M. Bird) have no place in literature. 




CHAPTER IV. 
The Awakening of New England. 

New York did not long continue to direct the literature 
it had begun. The brilliant writers who gathered about 
Irving and Bryant left no successors. Halleck and 
Bryant, like others of the New Yorkers, were too deep 
in business cares to make literature a serious occupa- 
tion. The force which had produced the first forms of 
imaginative prose and poetry, and fairly started a national 
literature, had apparently spent itself. About the year 
1832, New England became the seat of a vigorous lite- 
rary life, and Massachusetts the home of the most promis- 
ing men of letters in America. Literature had again trans- 
ferred its capital, from New York to Boston. 

The general causes of this new stir of life in New Eng- 
land and this awakening of intelligence were — 

1. The Conclusion of the Revolution had left the 
country at peace, and by 1820 it had recovered from the 
exhaustion of the long struggle, and awakened to a sense 
of national unity and power, and to a feeling of pride in its 
successful history. A national literature could not exist 
without national unity and a sense of national responsi- 
bility. High-hearted patriotism and devotion to the Re- 
public found fervent expression in the orations of Webster 
and the essays of the scholars. 

2. Changes of Relig-ion. — Immediately before the Rev- 
olution the religious zeal of the Puritans had subsided into 

62 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 63 

dulness or indifference. A new creed was slowly spread- 
ing through New England. It was Unitarianism. It was 
a natural reaction from the sombre severity of Puritan- 
ism. The sectarian narrowness of the religious teachers of 
the colonies had confined Christianity to a few select be- 
lievers in a single system of theology. Their intolerance 
would not permit any liberality of thought. The laws 
were administered by clerical authority. The unity of the 
colony was maintained by the strict rules of the Church. 
Only church-members could be admitted as " freemen." 
After the Revolution the same discipline could no longer 
be applied to the changed conditions of social life. The 
authority of the leaders of the Church was no longer rec- 
ognized. The defiance of the people to the old parental 
form of colonial government resulted in increased im- 
morality and irreligion. 

Under the old religion gayety had been repressed ; mirth 
and enjoyment were regarded as things of evil. The strug- 
gle for a new belief was the attempt to substitute joy for 
gloom and tolerance for bigotry. In the controversy 
between the old and the new, the mental powers were 
aroused and stimulated. Harvard College became Uni- 
tarian, and the pulpits of Unitarian churches were filled 
with the best scholars and writers of the time. 

3. Communication with Europe. — The eloquence 
a.nd originality of the leaders of the New England revolt 
created, in Eastern Massachusetts particularly, a new and 
vivid sense of the duty of life and the dignity of art. In 
1820, Edward Everett returned from Europe and told 
the people of Boston of the treasures of art and wisdom 
that lay in the literature of Germany. In 1823, Channing, 
the chief of the Unitarians, in his Remarks on a National 
Literature, made an eloquent plea for the study of French 
and German writers, in order that our literature might 
be broadened into an independence that would place it 
on terms of equality with the literature of Great BritaiUe 



64 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Goethe was then in the maturity of his powers, and 
Coleridge was arousing England with the new philosophy 
of Germany. Enthusiastic study of German thought be- 
gan at once in New England. Many translations were 
made by Ripley, Dwight, and Hedge. The philosophical 
thought of Germany soon began to modify the Unitarian- 
ism of Channing and liis followers. 

Not only was the criticism of Germany received, but also 
the new poetry of England was eagerly read. A chain of 
causes had brought about in England a literary revolution. 
The old favorite of the colonists, Alexander Pope, was 
deposed from his place at the head of literature. What 
had been artificial became natural. Scott, Byron, 
Shelley, and Wordsworth belonged to the new school. 
The world was full of new energy, and the newly-awakened 
spirit of New England was prompt to take its place in the 
progress of the time. 

Groups of Writers. — The new spiritual and intel- 
lectual life of New England, produced mainly by the three 
causes just named — the sense of national pride, the rise of 
a liberal theology, and the influence of the literatures of 
Germany and England — expressed itself in three groups 
of authors : First, the political group, including the great 
orators ; second, the poets and theologians, belonging to 
the early days of separation in the Church ; third, the 
scholastic group, including the Concord writers and the 
poets, novelists, and essayists who completed the reforms 
of the Unitarians. 

The first group belongs rather to history than to litera- 
ture, but some of its names have too much literary value to 
be omitted from even a hasty survey. The second and 
third groups represent the true literary characters who, 
together with the New York writers, are the creators of our 
national literature. 

The new intellectual life of New England thus produced 
and thus expressed had also three epochs, or three chapters 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 65 

of history. They were — (1) Unitarianism, (2) Transcen- 
dentahsm, (3) The antislavery movement. The first was 
led by Channing, the second by Emerson, the third (in 
literature) by Whittier. They were successive stages of 
one movement of humanity. The first epoch is repre- 
sented by the second group of writers — the second and 
third epochs by the third group. 

The First Group stands apart from the main literary 
current of the time, and may therefore be quickly disposed 
of. To it belong the great orators and statesmen whose 
eloquence adorns our literature, and whose wisdom digni- 
fies our political history. Prominent among them were 
Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Alexander Hill Eve- 
rett, Edward Everett, and Rufus Choate. Contempo- 
rary with them in the South were Robert Y. Hayne and 
John C. Calhoun. 

These men belonged to an age of unexampled political 
development. The new republic w^as expanding across 
the continent. New States were rapidly admitted, and 
the planting of the wilderness was advanced by ever-in- 
creasing armies of settlers. Jeff^erson in 1803 had pur- 
chased Louisiana, and thereby given to the United States 
the key to the Mississippi and the granary of the West. 
In the midst of this prosperity the nation experienced its 
first strain. Sectional dispute and party quarrels arose 
over questions of slavery, tariff*, and States' rights. The 
champion of " nullification " was Calhoun ; the defend- 
ers of Federal principles were, above all others, Clay and 
Webster. 

Henry Clay (1777-1852) was one of America's greatest 
orators. But the power of his oratory resided in his per- 
sonal force and magnetism ; his speeches had very little 
literary value. His genius was great, but unschooled. 
His character was beyond reproach. He was the idol of 
his party (the Whigs), and, if not always safe as a leader, 
was yet always inspired by the truest patriotism. 



66 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, N. H., Jan. 
18, 1782. His education began at the Exeter Academy, 
was continued under the tuition of the Rev. Samuel Wood, 
and was completed in Dartmouth College, whence he was 
graduated in 1801. After leaving Dartmouth, Webster sup- 
ported himself and helped his brother through college by 
teaching school at Fryeburg, Me. In 1804, he entered the 
law-office of Christopher Gore in Boston, and soon after 
began the practice of his profession. In 1812, he was 
elected to Congress. His first political act was a criticism 
of the Embargo. At the expiration of his second term in 
Congress (March 4, 1817) he retired to private life, when 
his law-practice increased greatly. His first important case 
was his famous defence of Dartmouth College against the 
encroachments of the New Hampshire legislature. This 
was in 1818. In 1820 he delivered a magnificent me- 
morial oration upon the second centennial of the Landing 
of the Pilgrims. His oration in 1825 at the laying of the 
corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument placed him in the 
first rank of the orators of the world. In 1826 he deliv- 
ered his eulogy upon Adams and Jefferson. In the follow- 
ing year he was elected to the Senate. The " Tariff* of 
1828 " led to the announcement of the principles of nulli- 
fication by Calhoun and the public men of South Carolina. 
In December, 1829, a resolution limiting the sale of public 
lands was introduced into the Senate by Samuel A. Foote 
of Connecticut. In the debate over this resolution Robert 
Y. Hayne of South Carolina attacked the New England 
States. On the 26th and 27th of January, 1830, Webster 
replied in the greatest speech ever delivered in this coun- 
try, and perhaps the greatest in history. It is best known 
as " The Reply to Hayne." In the same year he made his 
famous speech on the trial of the murderers of Joseph 
White. He was Secretary of State under President Harrison 
and under President Fillmore. He was twice defeated for 
the nomination to the Presidency. His last great speech 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 67 

was on the " Fugitive-Slave Law," in 1850. He died at 
Marshfield, Mass., Oct. 24, 1852. 

Webster's Genius. — Webster stands in American his- 
tory as the representative of the grand idea of Union, All 
his powers were devoted to the illustration of " the neces- 
sity and the nobility of the Union of the States." His ora- 
tions were the mightiest of the literary influences that 
made the sentiment of Union and the belief in the grand- 
eur of our nationality so much a part of the consciousness 
of the American people that the country was carried safely 
through the crisis of the Civil War. Webster's profound 
love of country, and his prophetic vision of the immense 
future of America, gave a philosophical value to every ora- 
tion and a w^eight of meaning to every sentence. He dig- 
nified every subject by his broad, popular, and impressive 
treatment of it. His orations have always a wide horizon ; 
they concern " the distant generations " as well as the 
present listeners. 

Webster's style was simple but majestic. It was entirely 
his own, and expressed his imposing personality. Its 
chief features were — (1) clearness of vision, (2) accurate 
combination, (3) logical argument, (4) forcible illustra- 
tion. 

Unity was as much the key-note of Webster's style as of 
his thought. His clearness, freshness, and force w^ere the 
outcome of the extreme simplicity of his style. Rhetoric 
never prevented the logical development of his argument. 

The Everetts. — Alexander Hill Everett (1792- 
1847) was graduated from Harvard College, studied law 
under John Quincy Adams, and went to Russia, in 1809, as 
secretary to the legation. He was minister to Spain 1825-29, 
after which he became proprietor and editor of the North 
American Review^ which had been previously conducted by 
his brother Edward. He published Europe; or, A General 
Survey of the Political Position of the Principal Powers (1822), 
America ; or^ A General Survey of the Political Situation of the 



68 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Several Powers of the Western Continent (1827), Critical and 
Miscellaneous Essays (1845), and Poems (1845). His best 
essays were contributed to the North American Revieiv. 

Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Mass., April 
11, 1794, and died in Boston, Jan. 15, 1865. He was grad- 
uated from Harvard with the highest honors in 1811. In 
1813 he succeeded the Rev. J. S. Buckminster as pastor of 
the Brattle Square Church, Boston. In 1814 he was ap- 
pointed professor of Greek hterature at Harvard. He 
then went abroad and studied in foreign universities, par- 
ticularly in Gottingen. He returned to America in 1820 
and became editor of the North American Review. He had 
been the most eloquent of preachers ; he now became the 
most inspiring of teachers. The first interest in German 
literature proceeded from him. In 1824 he was elected to 
Congress, and kei3t his seat ten years. In 1835 he became 
governor of Massachusetts, and " at the next election was 
defeated by only one vote out of more than one hundred 
thousand." He was appointed, through the influence of 
Webster, minister to England. He received honorary de- 
grees from both Oxford and Cambridge. From 1846 till 
1849 he was president of Harvard College. In 1852 he 
succeeded Daniel Webster as Secretary of State. He was 
instrumental in purchasing Mount Vernon, and for that 
purpose delivered a series of lectures, the proceeds of 
which amounted to ninety thousand dollars. 

Everett in Literature. — Two of Mr. Everett's poems 
are still remembered : they are " Alaric the Visigoth " and 
'^ Santa Croce." He published Orations and Speeches on 
Various Occasions (1836), Importance of Practical Education 
and Useful Knowledge (1836). More than a hundred arti- 
cles are contained in the three published volumes of his 
orations. His first famous address was in 1824, " On the 
Circumstances Favorable to the Progress of Literature in 
America." At its close occurred the memorable apostro- 
phe to La Fayette, who was the guest of the evening. 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND, 69 

Everett was very successful in popularizing the discov- 
eries of science and the researches of history. His oratory 
was of a different type from Webster's. Everett's was 
the oratory of elegance — Webster's, of force. The chief char- 
acteristic of Everett's mind was just judgment. His rhe- 
torical grace is fine, but artificial. The smoothness and 
symmetry of his productions are the natural outcome of 
his thorough scholarship. " His style, with matchless 
flexibility, rises and falls with his subject, and is alternately 
easy, vivid, elevated, ornamented, or picturesque, adapting 
itself to the dominant mood of the mind as an instrument 
responds to the touch of a master's hand " (Hillard). 

Everett did not possess that highest art, which is the con- 
cealment of art. The reader is painfully conscious that 
the author is trying to say something brilliant. His sen- 
tences are prepared with labored care. They are not spon- 
taneous, like Webster's, but diligently studied. Everett 
wrote with his eye upon the style rather than upon the 
thought. Another defect is his want of intellectual depth 
and vigor. 

Rufus Choate was born in Essex, Mass., Oct. 1, 1799, 
and died in Halifax, Nova Scotia, July 13, 1859. He was 
graduated at Dartmouth in 1819. He was confirmed in 
his intention to study law by hearing Webster's speech 
in the Dartmouth College case. He entered the law-office 
of William Wirt. In 1841 he was elected to Webster's 
place in the United States Senate. Choate was deeply 
learned in the Greek language and literature. ^' In many 
ways he was the most scholarly of all American public 
men." His wide reading had refined a character which 
was, by nature, gentle and kindly. His writings have been 
collected in two volumes by S. G. Brown, with a memoir. 
His greatest effort was his eulogy upon Daniel Webster. 

His knowledge of the resources of the English language 
was almost unequalled. His style, while not a good model 
for imitation, is one of the most interesting to study. Its 



70 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

most noticeable feature is its long sentences. Choate's 
skill in speaking conducted his hearers safely through 
all the balanced parts of these interminable sentences. 
Often a single sentence would contain four hundred words, 
and some even contained seven hundred. The chief 
causes of these long sentences were — first, the author's ful- 
ness of information. He crowded his paragraphs with the 
knowledge with which his own mind was so richly stored. 
In the second place, his fondness for adjectives caused his 
sentences to outrun all proper limits. Whatever the sub- 
ject under discussion, Choate drew from his unlimited 
vocabulary the qualifying words which would accurately 
define its character. It is said that in a simple case relat- 
ing to the theft of some harness he described the missing 
articles as " safe, sound, secure, substantial, second-hand, 
second-rate harness." 

The Southern Orators. — Robert Y. Hayne (1791- 
1839) was a native of South Carolina. He took a vigorous 
part in the nullification controversy and in the opposition 
to the protective system. In 1830 he became involved in 
a debate with Webster upon the principles of the Constitu- 
tion and the rights of States, which elicited from Webster 
his famous " Reply to Hayne." * 

John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) was the most eloquent 
orator and leading debater of the South. He entered Yale 
College in 1802. He was admitted to the bar in 1807. 
In 1811 he entered the House of Representatives. In 1817 
he became Secretary of War. In 1824 he was elected 
Vice-President of the United States. In 1832 he was 
elected to the Senate, where he appeared as the cham- 
pion of nullification. Every great political measure of 
his time received his careful thought, and was in some 
measure influenced by his opinion. His eloquence was 
clear, direct, and energetic. There was, too, a moral power 

•^ See Paul H. Hayne, p. 131. 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 71 

in his life which commanded the respect even of his op- 
ponents. His honesty lent authority to every word that 
he spoke. Edward Everett once said : ^^ Calhoun, Clay, 
Webster! I name them in alphabetical order. What 
other precedence can be assigned them ? Clay, the great 
leader; Webster, the great orator; Calhoun, the great 
thinker." His works have been published in six volumes. 

The Second Group includes the early poets and the 
first theologians, prior to 1832. 

The Early Poets were contemporary with the New 
York writers. They show signs of the rising interests of 
New England, but there was nothing in either their 
thought or style to preserve them from oblivion. They 
have the credit that is due to all pioneers, but their own 
poor quality cannot keep them in the regard of the world. 

1. Washington Allston (1779-1843), poet and painter, 
was a power for culture in early New England. He was 
graduated from Harvard College in 1800. He studied art 
in Rome. He learned from Coleridge the meaning of the 
new poetic movements of Germany and England. In art 
he was our first great painter, and has been called, because 
of his ability in coloring, the " American Titian." His 
principal literary works were The Sylphs of the Seasons 
(1813) and Monaldi (1841). 

2. Richard Henry Dana, brother-in-law of Allston, 
was born at Cambridge in 1787, and died in Boston 1879. 
He entered Harvard, but did not graduate. In 1814 he 
joined the Anthology Club of Cambridge. Under the 
auspices of this organization The North American Review 
was published ; the first number appeared in May, 1815. 
Dana and his cousin, E. T. Channing, became joint editors 
of the Review in 1818. The Idle Man, a periodical miscel- 
lany of stories, essays, and poems, was begun by Dana, 
assisted by Bryant and Allston, in 1822. Dana's best 
work was his long poem. The Buccaneer (1827). 

Other Poets. — James Gates Percival (1795-1856), a 



72 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

poor poetaster, John Pierpont, and Charles Sprague con- 
tributed verses, now happily forgotten, to the growing lite- 
rature of New England. In Connecticut, Hillhouse and 
Brainard were the poets. 

Lydia H. Sigourney (1791-1865) was an industrious 
writer and a favorite with the American reading public. 
In her posthumous Letters of Life she recalls, as the pro- 
duct of her busy pen, forty-six different works and more 
than two thousand articles in nearly three hundred peri- 
odicals. Her subjects are drawn from the gentler senti- 
ments and are imbued with religious feeling. Among her 
best-known works are Letters to Young Ladies^ Letters to 
Mothers^ Letters to My Pupils^ and Past Meridian. 

Maria Gowen Brooks (Maria del Occidente) was a 
writer of much greater force. She was born in Massa- 
chusetts in 1795, and died in Cuba in 1845. At the home 
of Southey, in Keswick, England, she wrote part of her 
principal work, Zophiel; or, The Bride of Seven. The poem 
is founded on the story of Sara in the book of Tobit. It 
is the love of a fallen angel for a Hebrew maiden. 

The Theologians who, with the poets mentioned 
above, complete the second group of writers of the time of 
the New England awakening, are William Ellery Chan- 
NiNG, Joseph Stevens Buckminster, Orville Dewey, 
Charles Follen, William Ware, and Orestes Augustus 
Brownson. The Unitarian protest took definite shape 
under the direction of these men about 1815. 

1. Channing' was born in Newport, R. I., April 7, 1780; 
died in Bennington, Vt., October 2, 1842. He was edu- 
cated at Harvard College. In 1803 he took charge of the 
Federal Street Church, Boston. His literary reputation 
began with his contributions to the North American Review. 
About 1815 he was recognized as leader of the Unitarians. 
The story of the controversy between the old theology and 
the new, and the history of the rise of literary interests in 
New England, may be studied in the volumes of his ser- 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 73 

mons delivered between 1815 and 1830. " From the high, 
old-fashioned pulpit his face beamed down, it may be said, 
like the face of an angel, and his voice floated down like 
a voice from higher spheres. It was a voice of rare power 
and attraction, clear, flowing, melodious, slightly plaintive, 
so as curiously to catch and win upon the hearer's sympa- 
thy. . . . Often, too, when signs of physical frailty were 
apparent, it might be said that his speech was watched 
and waited for with that sort of hush as if one was waiting 
to catch his last earthly words." His influence was great 
in all social reforms, as well as in literary progress. His 
best literary production was his essay on the " Character 
and Writings of John Milton." 

2. J. S. Buckminster (1784-1812) restored the authority 
of the Greek and Roman classics in education and litera- 
ture — an authority which had greatly suff*ered during the 
Revolution. His library of ancient authors was large, and 
freely open to young students. None of the theologians, 
save Channing only, exercised so great an influence over 
the moral and intellectual life of New England. In 1809 
he delivered a famous and inspiring address before the 
Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge. One passage in it 
is very significant as a prophecy of the new literature 
which was then just about to appear. " Our poets and 
historians," he said, " our critics and orators, the men of 
whom posterity are to stand in awe, and by whom they are 
to be instructed, are yet to appear among us. But, if we 
are not mistaken in the signs of the times, the genius of 
our literature begins to show symptoms of vigor and to 
meditate a bolder flight, and the generation which is to 
succeed us will be formed on better models and leave a 
brighter track." 

3. Orville Dewey (1794-1882) was the assistant of Dr. 
Channing in Boston. His lectures on the " Education of 
the Human Race " and on " The Problem of Human Life '^ 
were very successful. 



74 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

4. Charles Follen was born in Romrod, Germany, in 
1796. He had been professor of civil law in the University 
of Basel. But the Prussian government demanded that 
he should be surrendered to "justice" for the crime of 
teaching revolutionary doctrines. He escaped to America 
and was made professor of German at Harvard. He lost 
his place through his devotion to the antislavery cause. 
In 1836 he was ordained a Unitarian clergyman. He 
lost his life in 1840 on the steamer '^ Lexington," which 
took fire on Long Island Sound. 

5. William Ware (1797-1852) came of a distinguished 
family of clergymen. His father, Henry Ware, was HoUis 
professor of divinity at Harvard. His brother, Henry 
Ware, Jr., was professor of pulpit eloquence in the same 
university. 

William Ware wrote two admirable historical novels, 
full of classical learning — Zenobia, and its sequel, Aurelian, 
The latter describes the persecution of the Christians in 
Rome. 

Orestes Augustus Brownson (1803-1876) is perhaps 
the most interesting representative of the restless spirit of 
theological inquiry in New England. At a time when the 
intellectual curiosity of men was leading them to test all 
the sectarian substitutes that were proposed for Puritanism, 
he, in his personal experience, passed through a succes- 
sion of religious emotions, and at last connected himself 
with the Roman Catholic Church. He was born in Stock- 
bridge, Vermont, Sept. 16, 1803, and was reared in the 
hard school of poverty and Puritanism. He entered the 
Presbyterian Church in 1822, but in a short time became 
a Universalist clergyman. He preached in Universalist 
churches of Vermont and New York, conducted Universal- 
ist papers, and wrote for religious periodicals. Under the 
influence of Robert Owen he projected plans for social 
reformation and assisted in the establishment of the Work- 
ingmen's party in New York. 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 75 

In politics he became a leader of the Democratic party, 
and was a forceful stump-speaker ; but, becoming dissat- 
isfied with Democratic policy, he united himself with the 
Whigs. 

In 1838 Brownson founded the Boston Quarterly Review. 
In 1844 he became a Roman Catholic, and the best of his 
life from that date until his death was devoted to polemic 
papers upon Catholic belief and discipline. 

Among his works are Charles Elwood; or, The Infidel Con- 
verted: an Autobiography (1840); The Spirit- Rapper : an 
Autobiography (1854); The Convert; or, Leaves from my 
Experience (1857) ; The American Republic : its Constitution, 
Tendencies, and Destiny (1865) ; Conversations on Liberalism 
and the Church (1870). 

The Third Group.— About the year 1815 the Uni- 
tarian movement in Massachusetts definitely began. It 
culminated about 1832. To the years between 1815 and 
1832 belong, for the most part, the writers of the second 
group. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Concord writers, and the 
antislavery workers belong to the third group, and beyond 
them are the poets, historians, essayists, and novelists who 
made rich our literature from 1832 until the outbreak of 
the Civil War. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. — Emerson is the most im- 
portant figure in our literature. He wrote in both prose 
and poetry, but was most successful in the former. He was 
a philosopher and a teacher. He taught the high ideals of 
pure living and lofty intelligence, and administered the 
best lessons of fortitude and self-reliance. Others have 
excelled him in literary skill and in power of imagination, 
but Emerson's name is, for wise thoughtfulness and far- 
reaching influence, the brightest in the history of our 
literature. 

Emerson's Ancestry. — Emerson came of a long line of 
scholars and preachers. His grandfather, William Emer- 



76 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

son, was the heroic pastor of Concord who urged his flock 
on the 19th of April, 1775, " to stand their ground." His 
father, also William Emerson, was editor from 1805 to 
1811 of The Monthly Anthology^ the journal of the Anthol- 
ogj^ Club, of which Mr. Emerson was vice-president. Out 
of the Monthly Anthology grew the famous North American 
Review^ and out of the Anthology Club Library grew the 
Boston Athenaeum. 

Education. — Emerson was born May 25, 1803, in Bos- 
ton, " within a kite-string of the birthplace of Benjamin 
Franklin." He was sent to the Boston Latin School in 
1813. In 1817 he entered Harvard College, where he had 
a struggle with poverty, and came under the influence of 
Edward Everett. He neglected mathematics, but read 
widely in literature. He was graduated in 1821. During 
the next three years he assisted his brother in school- 
teaching. Having saved from two to three thousand dol- 
lars by this means, he entered Cambridge Divinity School 
in 1825 to study for the ministry. At this time he was 
strongly influenced by W. E. Channing. In 1829 he suc- 
ceeded Henry Ware, Jr., in the charge of the Second 
Church of Boston. 

Great political changes were maturing in 1832. Thomas 
Jefferson and John Adams, the last statesmen of the 
Revolution, had died on the same day in 1826. The des- 
perate controversy between Federal unity and State sov- 
ereignty was preparing. In literature new ideas were tak- 
ing shape in both Europe and America. In this year the 
leading men of Germany, France, and England, Goethe, 
CuviER, and Scott, died. The romantic movement of 
Shelley, Keats^ Byron, and Wordsworth was at its 
height. Goethe had suggested the grand principle of evo- 
lution in science, and a new age with new interests and 
new men was about to be born. 

In this year Emerson resigned from his church and 
crossed the ocean. He wanted especially to see four Eng- 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 77 

lish writers. In Italy he found Walter Savage Landor. 
In England he talked with Coleridge, Wordsworth, and 
Carlyle. From them he derived new ideas, and his mind 
expanded in the presence of the large ideals of the leaders 
of English thought. Between Emerson and Carlyle began 
a friendship almost unique in literature and of great con- 
sequence to both writers. On his return to America, Emer- 
son began his career as a lecturer. In 1834 he made his 
home in Concord. On the anniversary of the battle of Lex- 
ington, April 19, 1836, he read the famous verses now called 
the " Concord Hymn." Two days later he married Lidian 
Jackson, sister to Dr. Charles Jackson, w^ho first used ether 
as an ansesthetic. In August of the same year he completed 
Nature^ his first important work. It was published the next 
month. Nature remains the most intense of all Emerson's 
writings. It put an end to many of the old controversies 
of America, and made literature of the theology of New 
England. It discussed the problems of liberty and neces- 
sity, of human freedom and divine sovereignty. In this 
way it corresponded to Jonathan Edwards's famous study, 
but it suggested ideas of which Edwards never dreamed. 
The beauty of the book was in its exquisite descriptions of 
nature. Its chief value was in the identity w^hich it 
pointed out of natural and spiritual law, and in the asser- 
tion that every existence in nature is the counterpart of an 
existence in the mind. 

A great scientist, Prof Tyndall, wrote in his copy of 
Nature — " Purchased by inspiration." 

Lectures. — Emerson next attempted a course of lec- 
tures on " The Philosophy of History." On August 31, 
1837, he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society an 
oration on ^' Man Thinking, or the American Scholar." Its 
effect was extraordinary. " It was an event without any 
former parallel in our literary annals — a scene to be always 
treasured in the memory for its picturesqueness and its in- 
spiration. What crowded and breathless aisles ! what win- 



78 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

dows clustering with eager heads !" (Lowell). Dr. Holmes 
called the oration " our intellectual Declaration of Inde- 
pendence." It gave positive assurance that the time had 
come for a literature which should no longer be feeble nor 
imitative. 

Emerson continued the thought of this inspiring address 
in his next course, upon " Human Culture." In 1838 he 
delivered his famous address before the Divinity School. 
The Dial was a journal established by Emerson in 1840. 
It was edited by Emerson and Margaret Fuller until 1844, 
when it ceased. More than forty of Emerson's pieces were 
contributed to it. Among his poems in The Dial were 
such famous ones as " The Problem," '^ Wood-Notes," and 
" The Sphinx." 

Essays. — Emerson's favorite form of writing was the 
essay. His first series of essays appeared in 1841. His 
plan was to polish and finish his lectures, and gather 
enough together to make a small volume. Among the 
subjects treated in the first series (twelve in all) are 
" History," " Self-Reliance," " Friendship," " Heroism," 
" Intellect." They were not difficult and obscure like 
Nature. Each was crowded with thought, and 
the thoughts were expressed in language clear as 
crystal. 

The second series of essays appeared in 1844. Among 
the subjects included in the volume were "' The Poet," 
" Experience," " Character," " Manners." The first con- 
tains the most imagination. It defines grandly the cha- 
racter and mission of the poet. 

English Traits. — In 1847, Emerson made a second visit 
to England. He lectured in several cities, and in 1856 
published his impressions of English life under the title 
English Traits. 

Representative Men was published in 1850. It was a col- 
lection of lectures delivered in 1845. The first was " The 
Uses of Great Men." Then followed studies of Plato the 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 79 

philosopher, Swedenborg the mystic, Montaigne the sceptic, 
Shakespeare the poet, Napoleon the man of the world, 
and Goethe the writer. 

Last Years. — The final lectures of Emerson form three 
volumes — Conduct of Life (1860), Society and Solitude (1870), 
and Letters and Social Aims (1875). 

In 1877 he published May-Day^ the most elaborate of 
his longer poems. Parnassus, a volume of selected poems, 
appeared in 1874. 

For some years before his death Emerson suffered from 
almost complete loss of memory. He died April 27, 
1882. 

Emerson's Character. — Emerson's manhood, no less 
than his genius, is worthy of admiration and of reverence. 
His life corresponded to his brave, cheerful, and steadfast 
teaching. He lived as he wrote. His manners were gen- 
tle, his nature transparent, and his life singularly pure and 
happy. The most striking features of his character were 
his optimism and his loyalty to truth. Always hopeful, 
always serene, the good and gracious Emerson has left 
memories of his manliness that are among the priceless 
possessions of our literature. 

Place in Literature. — (1) " We were still socially and 
intellectually moored to English thought till Emerson cut 
the cable and gave us a chance at the dangers and glories 
of blue water " (Lowell). His manly and independent at- 
titude was the most wholesome example that American 
literature could have. 

(2) Puritan theology had seen in man a vile creature 
whose instincts for beauty and pleasure were proofs of his 
depravity. Imaginative literature was impossible under 
such conditions. Unitarianism was the reaction from the 
Puritan austerity, and aimed to dignify man. The Uni- 
tarian movement took its first definite shape in the work 
of Channing. Emerson expanded the ideas of Channing, 
and converted the aspirations of theology into literature. 



80 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

(3) Emerson was, above all else, a thinker. He pon- 
dered the relations of man to God and to the universe. 
He taught the noblest ideals of virtue and of spiritual hfe. 

(4) The present age is scientific. The splendid dis- 
coveries of science have profoundly affected literature. 
Emerson was the first in America to make science into 
literature, and to explain the problems of nature "by 
his instincts of beauty and religion." 

Emerson's Style. — The charm of Emerson's style is 
due to two circumstances : first, the perfection of his sen- 
tences ; second, his unerring choice of the right word. 

(1) His sentences were short. They were the faultless 
expression of noble ideas. Emerson spent much time 
over his sentences, polishing them as a lapidary would a 
gem. They were carefully revised until every superfluous 
word was eliminated. 

(2) Emerson was singularly fortunate in his choice of 
words. There is never a misfit. He was always able to 
find exactly the word required to express his thought. It 
is the right word in the right place. 

The chief defect in the style of Emerson is the lack of 
coherence between the parts of a poem or an essay. The 
logical connection between the sentences is not always 
clear. It is sometimes a little hard to make out exactly 
what sentence Number Two has to do with sentence Num- 
ber One. An English critic has even said that the essays 
read as if the sentences had been shuffled in a hat and ar- 
ranged haphazard. The desire for compression led Emer- 
son not only to shorten his sentences, but to omit those 
intermediate clauses which explain the author's process of 
thought. Hence Emerson has left no great and finished 
work. He is a master of sentences, but he fails to build 
them into a symmetrical structure. 

Emerson's Influence. — Emerson clearly understood 
the main tendencies of the time, and in his literary work 
he has impersonated them. His teachings, both intel- 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 81 

lectual and moral, " have become," says Mr. Norton, " part 
of the unconsciously acquired creed of every young Amer- 
ican of good and gracious nature." He is worth more to 
us as an educational force than any modern European 
writer. Every book and every lecture that emanated from 
his tranquil Concord home was a rebuke to our selfish 
materialism, summoning us back to legitimate pieties and 
purity of thought. 

The Transcendentalists. — The Unitarianism of Chan- 
ning became, about 1832, the Transcendentalism of Emer- 
son. From a philosophical point of view, Transcendental- 
ism was the application of idealism to nature and the 
affairs of life. But in the sight of history it stands for that 
spirit of inquiry and experiment which marked the days 
of intellectual revolution in New England. Liberalism 
in Europe (1830-50) was dissolving the old political and 
social order. All the European states save Russia were 
being transformed by it. Liberalism in scientific thought 
was changing the character of literature and philosophy. 
New experiments were being tried in religion, in educa- 
tion, and in society. 

Transcendentalism is the phase w^hich this revolt took in 
New England. " The history of genius and of religion in 
these times," said Emerson, " will be the history of this 
tendency." The Dial was its literary organ, but the best 
statement of its aims was in Emerson's orations of 
1837-38. 

Brook Farm. — One of the curious incidents in the 
awakening of New England was the founding of the 
Brook Farm community. The dissatisfaction which the 
leading spirits of the time felt with the selfishness and 
shallowness of the existing social order led many of them 
to dream of an ideal society in which men should live as 
members of one family and not as enemies. Coleridge and 
Southey thought of founding such a society in America on 



82 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the Susquehanna River. In 1841, the year after Tlie Dial 
was begun, Mr. George Ripley proposed to his " Trans- 
cendental " friends in Boston a plan by which an asso- 
ciation might be formed '' in which the members . . . 
should live together as brothers, seeking one another's 
elevation and spiritual growth " (Channing). The com- 
munity took the name of " The Brook Farm Institute of 
Agriculture and Education.'' A stock company was 
formed. It numbered nearly seventy members. A farm 
of about 200 acres was bought at West Roxbury, Mass. 
(the birth-place of General Warren and the death-place of 
Bishop Eliot). The principle of the organization was co- 
operation, instead of competition, the members sharing 
jointly in the profits. Among the members were George 
Ripley, Charles A. Dana, George W. Curtis, Margaret 
Fuller, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. There were many 
other interested persons who were frequent visitors to the 
community, but who never identified themselves with it. 
Among them were Emerson, Theodore Parker, W. H. 
Channing, A, B. Alcott, and C. P. Cranch. The mem- 
bers sowed, reaped, and gathered into barns ; taught Latin 
and Greek, read lectures, and wrote poems. The Har- 
binger was a weekly literary journal conducted by them. 
This idyllic life continued about five years. On March 3, 
1846, a fire destroyed the main building, causing a loss of 
nearly seven thousand dollars, and the community was 
dissolved. Brook Farm is important in our history be- 
cause it brought together some of the best minds of New 
England, and engaged them in common studies and in the 
stimulating interchange of ideas. When it broke up these 
men and women carried the thoughts of Emerson and the 
culture of the society into every profession of American 
life. 

Members of Brook Farm Comniunity. — George 
Ripley, the founder of the community, was born in Green- 
field, Mass., Oct. 3, 1S02, and died in New York City July 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 83 

4,1880. He was a generous helper of all aspirants after 
literary fame. Ripley and Charles A. Dana (1819-97) 
edited together the New American Cyclopaedia. The work 
was begun in 1857 and completed in 1863. 

Dana was managing editor of the New York Tribune 
1847-62. Under his management The Tribune became the 
chief organ of the antislavery movement. In 1868, Dana 
published the first number of the New York Sun, of which 
paper he was the editor until his death in 1897. 

George William Curtis was born in Providence, R. I., 
Feb. 24, 1824. He accompanied his father to New York in 
1839, and was employed for a year as a clerk in a mer- 
cantile house of that city. He was eighteen months at 
Brook Farm, and two years on a farm in Concord, Mass, 
In 1846 he went abroad, and for four years travelled ex- 
tensively, not only in Europe, but in Egypt and the East. 
After his return, in 1850, he became one of the editors of 
The Tribune. For many years he was a popular lecturer 
and effective political orator. In 1853 he began to publish 
in Harper'^s Monthly the famous series of essays called the 
"Editor's Easy Chair." In 1857 he became the principal 
editor of Harper's Weekly. He died Aug. 31, 1892. 

Curtis's books are Nile Notes of a Howadji (1851), The 
Howadji in Syria (1852), Lotus-Eating (1852), Potiphar 
Papers (1853), Prue and I (1856), Truriips (1862). 

Curtis has a style of rare beauty and * of almost magic 
charm. It is hard to define the pensive, dreamy nature of 
his delightful sketches. It is prose that passes into poetry. 
It is a world from which all common and homely things 
have disappeared. Quaint fancy, delicate humor, ele- 
gance, and refinement breathe in every page of Prue and 1 
and the Howadji. Like the old bookkeeper in Prue and /, 
Curtis builds in all his books his castles in Spain. " They 
stand lofty and fair, in a luminous, golden atmosphere, a 
little hazy and dreamy perhaps, like the Indian summer." 

Trumps (a novel) and The Potiphar Papers are sharp 



84 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE, 

satires upon the hoUowness and sham of New York 
society life. The former contains a good description of 
Dr. Channing. 

His two books of travel are full of the spirit and romance 
of the gorgeous East. 

Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridge, Mass., May 
23, 1810. She received a careful education. Her wide 
culture and her conversational powers made her a welcome 
guest at the meetings of Emerson and Ripley and Chan- 
ning and Freeman Clarke. She edited The Dial, made 
numerous translations from the German, and wrote Sum- 
mer on the Lakes. 

In 1844 she became literary critic of the New York 
Tribune. For two busy years she continued to live in New 
York. Her articles in The Tribune covered a wide range of 
subjects, and she treated them in a strong, masculine man- 
ner. In 1847 she was in Rome. She married the Marquis 
OssoLi, and aided the Italian liberals in their struggle for 
independence. After the capture of Rome by the French, 
she and her husband escaped from the city, and in May, 
1850, they sailed for America. The vessel was wrecked 
upon Fire Island, and Margaret Fuller, her husband, and 
her child were drowned. Her life had been so spent in 
philanthropy that her literary productions were not in pro- 
portion to her genius. She published Woman in the Nine- 
teenth Century (1844) and Papers on Literature and Art 
(1846). Margaret Fuller is the original of Zenobia in 
Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance. 

The Concord Writers. — Concord, Mass., is the village 
of Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau. Its literary and 
historical associations are more numerous and interesting 
than those of any other place in America. It is the 
" cradle oi American liberty " and the birthplace of the 
antislavery movement. The great men and w^omen who 
made it their home have made the name of Concord 
famous through the world. The Transcendental Club, 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 85 

which had its first meeting in Dr. Ripley's house in Bos- 
ton, in 1836, met frequently in Concord. Curtis worked on 
a farm in Concord township. Emerson made the village 
his home in 1834, and was the magnet which drew all 
thoughtful minds thither. The principal Concord writers 
after Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, were Amos 
Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, W. H. Channing, 
and Theodore Parker. 

A. B. Alcott (1799-1888) was born in Wolcott, Conn. 
In 1828 he opened a school in Boston. His methods of 
teaching and of discipline were novel. Instead of taking 
a flogging themselves when they did wrong, his students 
were to flog him. After his removal to Concord he de- 
voted himself, in his visionary way, to various reforms in 
education and in civil institutions. He emphasized the 
necessity of a purely vegetable diet. He attempted to 
found a community similar to Brook Farm, on an estate 
near Harvard, Mass., called " Fruitlands," but failed. He 
published Tablets (1868), Concord Days (1872), Table Talk 
(1877), Sonnets and Canzonets (1877). 

His daughter, Louisa May Alcott (1832-88), wrote 
Little Women (1867), An Old-Fashioned Girl (1869), Little 
Men (1871), Aunt Jo^s Scrap-Bag (1871-82), Spinning - 
Wheel Stories (1884). 

Miss Alcott died March 6, 1888, two days after her 
father. 

Theodore Parker was born in Lexington, Mass., Aug. 
24, 1810. His early life was a continual struggle with pov- 
erty. Through all difficulties he pursued with unalterable 
zeal his determination to obtain a thorough education. In 
1837 he was ordained as minister at West Roxbury. At 
Brook Farm the busy clergyman met the best minds of 
America. His thirst for knowledge was amply gratified by 
the new society in which he found himself In 1846 he 
was called to larger usefulness in Boston. Here his suc- 
cess was great. His broad humanity, intense convic- 



86 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

tions, and heroic nature led him to support all movements 
designed to elevate or ameliorate the condition of the peo- 
ple. He was interested in questions of labor, poverty, 
and temperance. No one in the pulpit did more during 
the struggle against slavery. He was ceaselessly at work 
with tongue and pen arousing the conscience and strength- 
ening the sentiment of the North. He did the work of 
many men until, exhausted by his own tremendous labors, 
he was forced to go abroad. The relief came too late, and 
on May 10, 1860, he died in Florence, Italy. 

Parker was not a literary character. He was a thinker 
and doer. He wrote much, but never with a literary inten- 
tion. His complete works have been published in ten 
volumes (1870). 

The Channing-s. — William H. Channing and William 
Ellery Channing, nephews of Dr. W. E. Channing, were 
disciples of Emerson and frequent visitors at Concord. 
The former was a vigorous antislavery orator ; the latter 
has published five volumes of poems and a Life of 
Thoreau. 

Henry David Thoreau [pronounced Tho-ro']. — Many 
authors have helped to make Concord famous, but Tho- 
reau only was born there. He was the most original cha- 
racter among his distinguished townspeople, and has as 
permanent a place in literature as any of them. He 
was born July 12, 1817. • His grandfather came to 
America from the Isle of Jersey. Henry was sent to 
school in Boston and in Concord, and was graduated 
from Harvard in 1837. He was averse to learning a trade 
or profession. His later life was spent in writing, lec- 
turing, and reading a few favorite authors. Surveying 
and pencil-making furnished him with the few necessa- 
ries of his modest living. But Thoreau was a born natu- 
ralist. He stood nearer to Nature than do ordinary men. 
He read her secrets by some fine instinct. The pleasures 
and ambitions of the world had no fascinations for him. 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 87 

He despised wealth and rank and social reputation. He 
was at home in wild nature and on friendly terms with all 
its wild inhabitants. In 1845 he built with his own hands, 
on the shore of Walden Pond, in the neighborhood of Con- 
cord, a rudely-timbered hut. It had but one room, ten feet 
wide and fifteen feet long. Here Thoreau lived for two 
years and two months, during which time his expenses 
were but §68.76. So near was he to Nature's heart that 
squirrels played about his shoulders, the partridge fear- 
lessly entered his woodland hermitage, and the fish al- 
lowed him to take them fi^om the water into his hand. 
'' He named all the birds without the gun." He had the 
Indian's knowledge of woodcraft and of the times and sea- 
sons of flowers and animals. 

Sometimes he journeyed with the Indians, accompany- 
ing them in their canoes or climbing with them among the 
mountains of Maine. Everything in nature had secret 
lessons for him, from the blossoming of one of his favorite 
flowers, like the prince's pine, to a rude arrowhead or 
stone hatchet telling tales of the earlier owners of the 
continent. 

His Books. — A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers 
(1849) was Thoreau's first published book. It met with so 
poor a sale that nearly all the copies were returned to him 
by the publishers. It was then that he said that he had a 
library of nine hundred volumes, " seven hundred of 
which I wrote myself." His next book was Walden (1854). 
It was his best, and is now his most popular, work. The 
old hut by the pond has long since disappeared, but on 
its site is a pile of stones for ever increasing in size, as 
every visitor adds to the cairn another memorial stone. 
Thoreau died May 6, 1862 ; he was buried in the famous 
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Concord, where rest Emerson 
and Hawthorne. After his death five other books were 
printed from his manuscripts. They were Excursions in 
Field and Forest (1863), The Maine Woods (1864), Cape 



88 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Cod (1865), Letters to Various Persons (1865) A Yankee in 
Canada (1866). 

His Style. — Thoreau's manner of writing was much 
like Emerson's. He unconsciously acquired from his 
great friend many points of style, and particularly the use 
of the brief sentence packed with meaning. His minute 
descriptions, however, his acute observations, and his gen- 
uine love of nature and of solitude are entirely his own. 
Single sentences from his note-books are more interest- 
ing than his longer writings. They show the Emersonian 
faculty of casting an idea into a few words. For example : 
" Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance 
to read them at all." " One may well feel chagrined when 
he finds he can do nearly all he can conceive." " Noth- 
ing goes by luck in composition." " The best you can 
write will be the best you are." 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. — The finest products of the 
American genius in literature are Emerson and Haw- 
thorne. The former was the master-mind who fixed the 
character and determined the direction of American 
thought. The latter is our foremost literary artist. In 
him all that was weird and romantic in the superstitions 
of Puritanism flowered into the finest art. He expressed 
the strange imaginations of his beautiful and original 
genius in a style unsurpassed for vividness, subtilty, and 
varied melody. His work is permanent; his fame is 
secure. He is the most eminent representative of the 
American spirit in literature. 

In Salem, Mass., Hawthorne was born July 4, 1804. 
His family had dwelt in the grim old town since 1636, 
when William Hathorne removed thither from Dorches- 
ter. The life of the great romancer is closely bound up 
with the ancient sea-town. In his youth it was already 
falling to decay. It was haunted by memories of 
witches and strange stories of the sea. It is the Salem of 
Endicott and the sombre traditions of the first Puritans, 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 89 

All the surroundings of Hawthorne's childhood assisted 
his loneliness and impressed his imagination. He lived 
in a strange world of his own creation. His father w^as a 
melancholy and silent man, who died when Nathaniel 
was but four years old. His mother lived a sad and se- 
cluded life. And over all brooded the dark traditions of 
the ancient family. Two of the early Hawthornes had 
been among the stern judges who had inflicted unnatural 
punishments upon Quakers and witches. Other members 
of the family in the olden time had followed the sea and 
left behind them legends of peril and of strange adven- 
ture. 

Hawthorne's first education was received from Dr. 
Joseph E. Worcester, the author of the Dictionary. In 
1821 he entered Bowdoin College, in the same class with 
Longfellow, and a year after Franklin Pierce. After his 
graduation he returned to Salem and resumed his lonely, 
dreaming life. He went nowhere, he saw no one. He 
worked in his room by day, reading and writing ; at twi- 
light he wandered out along the seashore or through the 
darkening streets of the town. For twelve years, from 
1825 to 1837, this lonely life continued. He was uncon- 
sciously preparing for the most splendid literary fame. 
He was forming his character and his style. 

His first novel was Fanshawe, published at his own ex- 
pense in 1826. It was not successful, and was withdrawn 
from circulation. His first important book, Twice-Told 
Tales, appeared in 1837. 

George Bancroft, the historian, found him a place in 1839 
in the Salem custom-house, from which, two years after, he 
was dismissed when the Whigs came into power. 

He joined the Brook Farm community, but was never 
in sympathy with the movement nor a believer in the 
Transcendental notions of Emerson and his school. His 
Notebooks are full of his discontent with the life at West 
Eoxbury. " I went," he said, " to live in Arcady, and 



90 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

found myself up to the chin in a barnyard." His observa- 
tions took literary shape in The Blithedale Romance (1852), 
the only literary memorial of the singular Brook Farm 
Association. 

In Concord. — After his marriage in 1842, Hawthorne 
made his home in the '' old manse " in Concord, Mass. 
He was fond of old houses about which the fancy might 
weave strange romances. This historic house had been 
the home of William Emerson, the patriot-pastor ; in it 
Ralph Waldo Emerson had written Nature', and now 
Hawthorne wrote in it the tales which were- collected in 
the Mosses from an Old Manse (1846). The second series of 
Twice-Told Tales appeared in 1845. In the following year 
Hawthorne, whose income was decreasing, returned to 
Salem and was appointed surveyor of the port, a position 
which he held for three years. During this time he wrote, 
and in 1850 published, The Scarlet Letter, the greatest 
novel ever written in America. The House of the Seven 
Gables was his next book (1851), and in the same year 
appeared The Wonder-Book and the Snow Image, 

In 1852, Hawthorne bought the house in Concord which 
is now most intimately associated with his memory. He 
called it " Wayside ;" it was next to " Appleclump," the 
home of Alcott. Thoreau had told him that the house had 
once been occupied by a man who believed that he w^ould 
never die. Out of this idea Hawthorne created Septimius 
Felton, which was published by his daughter after his 
death. 

In Europe. — In 1853, after his friend and schoolfellow, 
Franklin Pierce, was elected President, Hawthorne was ap- 
pointed consul at Liverpool. He was in Europe seven 
years, the first four being spent in England. His close 
observation of foreign life appeared in the English Note- 
books, Our Old Home, and French and Italian Notebooks, 

In 1860 he published The Marble Faun, the scene of 
which was laid in Italy. 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 91 

Death. — Hawthorne died May 18, 1864, while travelling 
with ex-President Pierce in the White Mountains. He is 
buried in Concord Cemetery in the near neighborhood of 
Emerson and Thoreau. 

Hawthorne's Character. — Hawthorne was shy and 
solitary, but he was not morbid nor cynical. His life was 
almost devoid of incident. He was happy in his domestic 
relations. His character was as pure and as clear as his 
work. From his ancestors he had inherited the Puritan 
moods, which he wonderfully intermingled with his artis- 
tic genius. 

His Work. — Hawthorne began with short stories and 
ended with complete romances. The collections of short 
stories are Twice-Told Tales ^ Mosses from an Old Manse, Snow 
Image, Wonder-Book, and Tanglewood Tales. They contain 
three classes of tales — those of pure fancy and allegory, 
those which relate to early New England history, and 
stories for children. To the first belong such creations as 
" Rappaccini's Daughter," " Young Goodman Brown," 
" Drowne's Wooden Image," " Roger Malvin's Burial," 
" David Swan," " The Minister's Black Veil," etc. To the 
second belong " Legends of the Province House," " Endi- 
cott and the Red Cross," " The May-Pole of Merry Mount," 
*^ The Gray Champion," etc. The third is represented by 
The Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales, All these tales 
exhibit the same powerful imagination, and many of them 
leave an impression of gloom and mystery. 

Hawthorne is the most imaginative writer of the century. 
His fancy plays upon all his subjects, and makes much of 
the homely materials on which he relied for his effects. 

The characters of the short stories are scarcely human. 
They are types or symbols. They represent qualities of 
mind and conditions of conscience. Hawthorne's stories 
are stories of conscience. Sin and its consequences are as 
much present to his imagination as they were to the con- 
sciousness of his Puritan ancestors. Temptation, crime, 



92 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and the penalty of guilt are the subjects which he analyzes 
and describes. 

Hawthorne was most successful in his New England 
stories. He had a fine and unerring instinct in dealing 
with colonial history. The records and the legends of the 
colonial days were caught by him just as they were 
disappearing, and fixed for ever in literature. The stern 
and black-browed Puritans form the background of his 
art, and the ineradicable stain of blood which rests upon 
the persecutors of the witches tinges the current of his best 
and most immortal stories. There were opportunities for 
a romancer in such a background far greater than Irving 
could find upon the Hudson, or Cooper upon the New 
York frontier. 

The stories for children were among his most careful 
writings. First came The Whole History of Grandfather's 
Chair (1841). The True Stories from History and Biography 
was published in 1852, Wonder-Book in 1851, and its con- 
tinuation, Tanylewood Tales, in 1853. The latter two tell in 
simple language stories from classical mythology — " The 
Golden Apples," "The Gorgon's Head,"' and the like. 

Hawthorne's great novels are The Scarlet Letter, The 
House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The 
Marble Faun. The first three are American ; the last is 
Italian in scene and subject. 

The Scarlet Letter is his masterpiece. It is the best 
product of American literature. It ranks with the few 
really great novels of the world. It is a sombre story of 
crime and of repentance. There are but four characters, 
and around them is the chill atmosphere of Puritanism. 

The House of Seven Gables is a larger, more elaborate, 
and suggestive work than The Scarlet Letter, but it lacks 
the unity and completeness of the latter. Into The 
Blithedale Romance Hawthorne put his observations of hu- 
man character while living among the Brook Farmers. It 
contains the splendid and forceful character of Zenobia 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 93 

(Hawthorne had Margaret Fuller in mind when he drew 
this fine character). The drowning of Zenobia is the most 
tragic chapter Hawthorne ever wrote. 

The Marble Faun contains some of Hawthorne's finest 
writing. The descriptions of Italian life and scenery and 
art are perfect in their poetic grace and beauty. It is 
again a story of temptation and of crime, and, as in The 
Scarlet Letter^ there are but four important characters. 
The young Italian, Donatello, is the fawij so called from 
his fancied resemblance to the statue of the sylvan god 
by Praxiteles in the Capitol at Rome. 

Unfinished Work. — Hawthorne at the time of his 
death was busy with a novel to be called The Dolliver Ro- 
mance, A part of it was published after his death under 
the title of Septimius Felton ; or, The Elixir of Life. Eternity 
of earthly existence is the theme, the same that Haw- 
thorne had already employed in his " twice-told tale " of 
^' Dr. Heidegger's Experiment." 

Two other fragments w^ere posthumously published : 
The Ancestral Footstep and Dr. Grimshaive^s Secret. Both 
of them turn upon the legend of an indelible bloody foot- 
print. It is to these unfinished tales of mysterious imag- 
ination that Longfellow referred in his lines on the death 
of Hawthorne.^ 

His Style. — Hawthorne was not a philosopher like 
Emerson, but he was our first, and is still our greatest, lit- 
erary artist. His style was clear, simple, and pictorial. 
His skill in varying the construction of his sentences was 
greater than Emerson's, and his feeling for words equally 
sure. He was slow to compose, and slower to print, prun- 
ing, correcting, and refining, and timidly submitting the 
final work to the world. His principal fault was his 
fondness for allegory. His stories and his characters tend 
to lose human interest and to fade into symbols. His 

* " The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower 
Unfinished must remain.'' 



94 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

range was limited. But within his limits he has had no 
equal and has won deathless fame. 

Julian Hawthorne (1846 — ), the son of the romancer, 
has published several novels. Among them are Garth, 
Archibald Malmaison, Ellice Quentin, Sebastian Strome, For- 
iimeh Fool, and Dust. He has also written the biography 
of his father and mother. 

Antislavery. — The last phase of the great humanitarian 
movement was the antislavery enthusiasm. In this im- 
portant cause Concord and the Concord writers played an 
important part. It was at Concord that, in 1836, a public 
meeting was held to celebrate the liberation of the West 
Indian slaves by Great Britain. John Brown, the hero of 
Harper's Ferry, started from Concord for the scene of his 
desperate adventure in 1858. 

Almost all the friends of Emerson, with the notable ex- 
ception of Hawthorne, were abolitionists. The movement 
had for its leader William Lloyd Garrison ; for its states- 
man, Charles Sumner ; for its orator, Wendell Phil- 
lips ; for its novelist, Harriet Beecher Stowe ; and for 
its poet, John Greenleaf Whittier. 

1. Garrison (1805-79) founded in Boston, on Jan. 1, 
1831, The Liberator, a weekly antislavery journal, which 
he edited for thirty-five years. It was through his agita- 
tion that slavery became a burning question. He formed 
numerous societies, and created with his own pen a large 
antislavery literature. In 1835 he was dragged through 
the streets of Boston with a rope about his body. 

2. Charles Sumner was born in Boston Jan. 6, 1811, 
and died in Washington Mar. 11, 1874. He received his 
education at the Boston Latin School, Harvard Univer- 
sity, and the Law School. He rapidly took the place 
among scholars and men of letters to which his learning 
and genius entitled him. In 1837 he visited Europe, 
made hosts of distinguished friends, and was everywhere 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND, 95 

received and admired. Carlyle called him "Popularity 
Sumner." In 1840 he returned to America. 

On July 4, 1845, he delivered the first of his great ora- 
tions. It was upon "The True Grandeur of Nations." It 
aimed at the settlement by arbitration of international dif- 
ficulties. His speeches against slavery began in the same 
year. 

In 1856 he delivered a stirring speech on the " Crime 
against Kansas." Two days later he was attacked at his 
desk in the Senate Chamber by Preston S. Brooks of 
South Carolina, and terribly beaten with a bludgeon. It 
was not until 1859 that he could resume his seat in the 
Senate. 

Sumner's complete works have been published in fifteen 
volumes. 

His brother, Horace Sumner, was drowned with Mar. 
garet Fuller and her husband in the wreck of the ^' Eliza- 
beth," on Fire Island, in 1850. 

3. Wendell Phillips, next to Webster among Ameri- 
can orators, was born in Boston Nov. 29, 1811, and died 
there Feb. 2, 1884. He w^as educated at Harvard, studied 
law, and was admitted to the bar. 

In 1835 he saw Garrison dragged through the streets by 
a murderous mob, and his mind was then made up to 
devote himself to the abolition cause. 

In 1837, at a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, he made 
his first thrilling speech against slavery. Until the end of 
the struggle he fought side by side with Garrison and used 
all his splendid powers of oratory to arouse the country. 
His most celebrated literary addresses were, " Toussaint 
rOuverture " and " The Lost Arts." 

4. Harriet Beecher Stcwe (1812-1896) was born in 
Litchfield, Conn., June 14, 1812. She was the daughter of 
Dr. Lyman Beecher, a distinguished clergyman. From 1824 
to 1832 she lived in Hartford as pupil and teacher. In 1836 
she married Prof. Calvin E. Stowe. She inherited from 



96 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

her father a hearty hatred of slavery. While living with her 
husband in Cincinnati she often received and protected 
runaway slaves. When the Fugitive-Slave Law passed^ 
Mrs. Stowe felt keenly the indifference of the North, and 
began to write Uncle Tomi's Cabin, the book which has car- 
ried her name to all parts of the world. Richard Hil- 
DRETH had published in 1836 Archy Moore, an antislavery 
novel, but the success which now attended Uncle Tonics 
Cabin Avas without parallel. It was first published in the 
National Era at Washington, from June, 1851, to April, 
1852, and in the latter year it was issued in book-form 
in Boston. It has been translated into every language of 
Europe — even into Armenian, Bohemian, Wallachian, and 
Welsh. It has been dramatized and acted in most of the 
theatres of the world. In the United States alone a half 
million copies were sold in five years. 

In 1853 appeared A Key to Uncle Tonics Cabin, In 
this year Mrs. Stowe went abroad for her health, and 
on her return published Sunny Memories of Foreign 
Lands. 

Her other works were Drecl : A Tale of the Great Dismal 
Swamp (1856), The Minister's Wooing (1859), The Pearl of 
Orr's Island (1862), Agnes of Sorrento (1862), Little Foxes 
(1865), Old-Town Folks (1869), Sam Laivson's Fireside Stories 
(1871), My Wife and I {1S72), We and Our Neighbors (1875), 
Poganuc People (1878). 

Her Work. — Mrs. Stowe w^as never a very careful or 
skilful writer, but she was always clear and animated. 
She got much of her style from frequent reading of Sir 
Walter Scott. For many years she wrote and rewrote, cor- 
rected and destroyed, until at last she acquired the power 
she so much desired of being able to say exactly what she 
thought. 

Her books belong to three classes : those that relate to 
slavery, those that treat of New England character, and 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 97 

those which contain practical suggestions as to the every- 
day business of life. 

The first group contains the famous Uncle Torri^s Cabin 
and Dred (sometimes called Nina Gordon^, 

The second group has for its finest specimens The Min- 
ister'' s Wooing and Old-Town Folks, Either of these is su- 
perior in style to Uncle Tom, whose fame depends upon the 
subject. 

The practical books, with their useful and pleasant hints 
as to dress, cooking, housekeeping, and a thousand things 
of the household, are Little Foxes, House-and-Home Papers, 
etc. 

5. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) is as distinc- 
tively the poet of New England as Hawthorne is its romancer. 
Although a member of the sect of the Quakers, who were 
hated and persecuted by the Puritans, he has done more 
than any other American writer, save Hawthorne, to 
preserve in literature the traits and traditions of the first 
New Englanders. He is, moreover, the chief represen- 
tative in poetry of the historic struggle which resulted 
in the overthrow of slavery and which preceded the Civil 
War. 

His Early Life. — Whittier was born in Haverhill, Mas- 
sachusetts, in the Valley of the Merrimac, Dec. 17, 1807. 
His ancestors were Quakers, and through all his life he 
adhered to the principles of the sect. His opportunities 
for education were few and meagre. He worked on his 
father's farm until 1827, when, with his scanty earnings, 
he attended Haverhill Academy for six months. He then 
taught in a district school, and returned for another half 
year at Haverhill. 

While still a farm-hand he became the owner of a copy 
of Burns's poems, to the reading of which may be traced 
his first literary impulse. His first publications were 
anonymous contributions to William Lloyd Garrison's 
Free Press, It Avas in this way also that he became ac- 
7 



98 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

quainted with the reformer whoui he was destined so 
greatly to assist. 

Antislavery Advocate. — After a rather large experi- 
ence as a journalist, Whittier consecrated himself to the 
historic movement which was then agitating New Eng- 
land. He became in 1836 secretary of the American Anti- 
slavery Society. In 1838 he edited the Pennsylvania Free- 
man in Philadelphia. In the following year his press was 
destroyed and his office burned by a mob. 

In 1840, Whittier made his home at Amesbury, Mass., 
where he resided until his death. 

His Work. — Whittier's first volume was Legends of New 
England (1831). It was in prose and verse. In 1836 he 
published Mogg Megone, and soon after the Bridal of 
Pennacook, in both of which he drew his subjects from the 
life of the New England colonists and their relations to the 
Indians. 

From 1838 to 1889 he was an industrious writer. His 
works fall into three groups or classes : First, the poems 
of freedom ; second, those relating to New England his- 
tory, to witchcraft and colonial traditions; third, rural 
ballads and idylls. 

(1) Whittier is, first of all, the poet of freedom. In his 
poem entitled " Proem," after apologizing for the imper- 
fections of his style, he declares — 

" Yet here at least an earnest sense, 

Of human right and weal is shown, 
A hate of tyranny intense 
And hearty in its vehemence, 

As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own." 

And adds that, with a love as deep and strong as Milton's, 
he lays his best gifts upon the shrine of Freedom. This 
passionate love of liberty, and this earnest '' sense of hu- 
man right " swell in the sincere patriotism of " Barbara 
Frietchie," in the exulting joy of " Laus Deo," and in the 
scorching indignation of " Ichabod " [written on the fall of 



THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 99 

Webster]. The antislavery lyrics are passionate, but not 
artistic. He gained his reputation with the Voices of 
Freedom (1849), but most of the poems had only a tem- 
porary interest and value. They aroused public opinion 
by their fervor and invective, but they had none of the 
greater merits that ensure permanent fame. Among the 
poems inspired by the idea of liberty are verses addressed 
to the famous leaders of revolution in both Europe and 
America. Channing, Sumner, Elliott, Garibaldi, and 
Kossuth are thus addressed. But the finest among them 
are the verses on the death of Garrison. 

(2) The second group includes many of Whittier's best 
ballads. These simple and spirited poems have done in 
verse for colonial romance what Hawthorne did in prose 
in the Twice-Told Tales or Scarlet Letter, Whittier is the 
greatest of American ballad-writers. He has a story to 
tell, and tells it vividly. Among the best of these roman- 
tic songs are " Cassandra South wick," " The King's Mis- 
sive," " Calef in Boston," " Mabel Martin," " How the Wo- 
men Went from Dover," " The Witch of Wenham," " Mar- 
guerite," and " Skipper Ireson's Ride." 

(3) The third group consists entirely of the pastoral 
poems, or ballads and idylls of rural life. They contain the 
very heart and soul of New England. They are faithful 
and loving pictures of humble life, simple and peaceful in 
their subject and their style. The masterpiece of this 
group is Snow-Bound, Other conspicuous poems are, 
"The Barefoot Boy," "Telling the Bees," "Among the 
Hills," etc. It is poems of this kind, relating the sim- 
ple experiences of homely characters, that have carried 
him to the hearts of the people and made him, next to 
Longfellow, the most popular of American poets. 

Some of Whittier's ballads take their subjects from his- 
tory, like the splendid Barclay of Ury. The longer poems 
of Whittier are, In War Times (1863), The Tent on the 
Beach (1867), The Pennsylvania Pilgrim (1872). His prose 



100 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

works are, Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal (1849), 
delightful sketches of life and character in the old colonial 
days ; Old Portraits and Modern Sketches (1850) ; and Literary 
Recreations (1854). 

His Character and Style. — Two things must be re- 
membered in studying the writings of Whittier : first, his 
scanty education ; second, his love of freedom and his fel- 
low-men. 

His early surroundings were simple and frugal. He has 
pictured them in Snow-Bound, Poverty, the necessity 
of laboring upon the farm, his Quaker creed, his busy 
later life, all conspired against his growth in knowledge 
and literary culture. And this limitation of knowledge is 
at once his charm and his defect. It has led him to write 
as no other poet could upon the dear simplicity of the 
New England farmstead. He has written from the heart, 
not from the head. He has composed popular pastorals, 
not hymns of culture. 

A certain charm resides in his homely words and home- 
spun phrases. There is a pleasure and a satisfaction in 
the freshness of his verse which we seek in vain in the 
labored ornaments and polished art of more highly-culti- 
vated masters. 

It is also the obvious cause of his chief defects. He 
has himself stated his imperfections and their causes in the 
first five stanzas of " Proem." 

Whittier did not master the melodies of verse as other 
American writers, more widely read than he, have done. 
His style is uniform and his measure monotonous. 

Whittier is a poet of nature. He has painted the land- 
scapes of New England as Bryant has the larger features 
of the continent. " Salisbury's level marshes," '^ the low 
green prairies of the sea," and ^'all the little world of 
sights and sounds whose girdle was the parish bounds," 
are the materials out of which Whittier has drawn his 
" golden woof-thread of romance." 




CHAPTER V. 

Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell. 

The three names that are here bracketed together repre- 
sent the best culture and the highest ideals of American 
literature. They are the finest outcome of the intellectual 
strivings of New England. Two of them were graduates 
of Harvard College, and all of them were members of its 
faculty. Holmes was the most popular and most versatile 
of our men of letters ; Lowell, the best illustration of the 
possibilities of American culture; and Longfellow was the 
most universally known of all our poets, reaching the 
hearts and raising the lives of millions of his country- 
men. 



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, 
Maine, " the Forest City," on the 27th of February, 1807. 
He was a descendant of the John Alden and Priscilla 
Mullens whose lives he wove into that loveliest of Puri- 
tan romances. The Courtship of Miles Standish. In his 
poem " My Lost Youth " he gathered his memories of his 
native town. Among other things, he recalled the sea- 
fight in 1812 in Portland harbor between the " Boxer" and 
the " Enterprise," when the commanders of both the Brit- 
ish and the American brig were killed and laid " in their 
graves o'erlooking the tranquil bay." 

He had the range of his father's fine library, and was 

101 



102 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

always a great reader, dwelling with especial fondness on 
Irving's Sketch-Booh 

From Portland Academy, Longfellow went in 1822 to 
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. He entered the same 
class with Hawthorne, and between the two sprang up a 
lifelong friendship. 

Teaching and Travelling. — In 1825 he was graduated 
from Bowdoin, and was almost immediately appointed 
professor of modern languages in his alma mater. He was 
allowed a year for European travel, that he might prepare 
himself for his new office. He visited France, Spain, Italy, 
and Germany, and returned in 1829 laden with the spoils 
of foreign study. He was the first to establish permanently 
in our literature the scholarship of Europe. 

In 1834 he was appointed professor of modern languages 
at Harvard, to succeed Mr. George Ticknor. In this year 
and the next he published Outre- Mer^ a series of sketches 
of his travels. He had previously published (1833) his 
first book, Coplas de Manrique, a translation from the 
Spanish. 

In 1835, Longfellow again went abroad, and worked hard 
at the languages and literatures of the Old World. 

When he began his new duties at Harvard in 1836 he 
made his home in Cambridge, in the old Craigie House, 
which had been the home of Washington when he took 
command of the army. 

In 1843, after a third visit to Europe, he married 
Frances Appleton, the heroine (Mary Ashburton) of 
his Hyperion. In 1861 his wife was burned to death. 
He sailed for Europe for the last time in 1868, and re- 
ceived the highest literary honors from Oxford and from 
Cambridge. 

He died March 24, 1882, at Cambridge, Mass. 

Prose Works. — Longfellow's happy and studious life 
was devoted to poetic composition. Nothing interfered 
with the continuous progress of his literary work. In the 



LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, AND LOWELL. 103 

long list of his publications are three prose works : Outre 
Mer, Hyperion, and Kavanagh, 

Outre Mer (1835) was a description of his first European 
travels. It contained sketches, in the manner of Irving, of 
France, Spain, and Italy. 

Hyperion (1839) also relates some of the experiences and 
meditations of foreign travel, but in the form of a romance. 
The book is slightly autobiographic. Paul Flemming, the 
hero, is Longfellow himself. Mary Ashburton, the heroine, 
is Frances Appleton, who four years later became his wife. 
But the simple love-story makes only a small part of the 
book. The rest contains original translations of German 
poems, criticisms on Goethe and Richter and other Ger- 
man poets, and legends of the castled Rhine. It is a true 
prose-poem, crowded with poetic imagery and full of the 
poetic spirit. 

Kavanagh^ a novel, was published in 1849. It was less 
important than Hyperion, but also less faulty in style. It 
was not so cloyed with sentiment, and showed a finer lite- 
rary sense. It was a prose-idyll of New England village 
life. 

His Poetry. — Longfellow's first collection of poems was 
the Voices of the Night (1839). In this volume were such 
famous poems as " The Psalm of Life," " The Reaper and 
the Flowers," " Footsteps of Angels," and the" Beleaguered 
City." They all illustrate the German influence which 
was so strong in Longfellow's life, and show the sadness 
and the sentiment which mark the German romanticism. 
" The Psalm of Life " is not a great poem, but it became 
immediately popular — was sung and preached in churches 
and repeated by the people, until it was the most familiar 
of American poems. 

Ballads and Other Poems was published in 1841, and con- 
tained " The Skeleton in Armor," " Wreck of the Hes- 
perus," " Excelsior," " The Village Blacksmith," " Maiden- 
hood," etc. 



104 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Poems on Slavery appeared in 1842. The earnest passion 
which belonged to Whittier's lyrics of slavery was absent 
from these more studied compositions. 

In 1843, Longfellow made an experiment in dramatic 
writing and published The Spanish Student. 

Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845) was a collection of 
translations (many made by himself) from the representa- 
tive writers of Europe. 

In 1846 was published The Belfry of Bruges and Other 
Poems. It included such well-known poems as " The Old 
Clock on the Stairs/' '' The Arsenal at Springfield," and 
" The Arrow and the Song." 

The Seaside and the Fireside (1850) had in it " The Build- 
ing of the Ship," so well known by every school-boy, and 
one of the best examples of Longfellow's style. 

The Golden Legend (1851), a long poem, is laid in the 
thirteenth century, on the Rhine. It is a medieval ro- 
mance dramatically treated. The versatile genius of the 
poet is best illustrated in this work. 

Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863) is a series of stories mod- 
elled after the plan of Chaucer. The prologue introduces 
to the reader the several characters of the book. They are 
the Landlord, the Student, a Spanish Jew, a Theologian, 
a Norse Musician (Ole Bull), a Sicilian, and a Poet (T. W. 
Parsons). A thread of comment unites the many stories 
of this delightful volume. Longfellow was a charming 
story-teller, and these tales are told in the clearest and 
yet most varied verse. The first story in the book is as 
familiar as " The Psalm of Life." It is " Paul Revere's 
Ride." The best of the stories are the legends of " King 
Olaf." 

The New England Tragedies (1868) employed those sub- 
jects with which the genius of Hawthorne had done such 
wonderful things. But Longfellow was not successful in 
his studies in the sombre chapters of witchcraft, and these 
two tragedies, " John Endicott " and " Giles Corey of the 



LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, AND LOWELL. 105 

Salem Farms," did not add much to the author's reputa- 
tion. 

The Divine Tragedy (1872) was a dramatic study of the 
Hfe of Christ. 

Three Books of Song (1872) contained a second series of 
the " Tales of a Wayside Inn " and the drama of " Judas 
Maccabeus." 

His last poems were The Hanging of the Crane (1874), a 
short poem written in honor of T. B. Aldrich (see page 155) ; 
The Masque of Pandora (1875), a volume of miscellaneous 
poems which included " Morituri Salutamus " and the 
*' Sonnet to Summer;" Keramos (1878), a poem of the pot- 
ter; Ultima Thide (1880). 

A tragedy called Michael Angelo was published after 
Longfellow's death. 

Three American Poems. — Evangeline, Hiawatha, and 
The Courtship of Miles Standish are the best and the most 
characteristic of Longfellow's works. The first is the best 
idyll in our literature ; the second is the epic of the red 
race of America ; the last is a poetic romance of old colonial 
days in New England. 

Evangeline was Longfellow's first long poem. It appeared 
in 1847. It was based upon a pathetic chapter in Ameri- 
can history. Acadia (or Nova Scotia), which is the scene 
of the story, was in 1755 inhabited by certain French 
colonists called "French Neutrals." When the Massachu- 
setts men captured the French forts on the Bay of Fundy 
the Acadians were condemned as rebels and were ordered 
to leave the province. In the exile which followed fami- 
lies and lovers were separated, perhaps never to be re- 
united. In Longfellow's precious poem the Acadian 
maiden, Evangeline, searches for many years for her lover 
Gabriel, from whom she had been separated, and finds 
him at last in a hospital, dying. The poem is written in 
hexameter verses, a metre rarely used in English poetry. 
There were great difficulties in the way of writing a long 



106 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

poem in this classic measure. But Longfellow's success 
was at least as great as Clough's or Kingsley's. His verses 
were not accurate according to classical tradition, but they 
were musical, and their style was not a classic imitation, 
but a modern invention. 

Hiawatha^ the American epic, was published in 1855. 
Out of the rude legends of savage tribes Longfellow con- 
structed this splendid epic of the wilderness. It is the 
best of all his long poems. Like Hiawatha's boat, " the 
forest's life is in it, all its mystery and its magic." 

Freneau had been the first to make use in literature of 
the romantic Indian life. Cooper had, in the Leather- 
Stocking Tales, given permanent life to the red man. Long- 
fellow gave an imaginative, original, and intensely interest- 
ing record of the ancient Indian traditions. The metre, 
which is admirably adapted to the subject, was derived 
from the Kalevala, the epic of Finland. It is unrhymed 
trochaic verse of eight syllables. 

The Oourtship of Miles Standish (1858) is on a distinctly 
lower plane than either Evangeline or Hiawatha, but it is a 
delightful picture of the " old colony days in Plymouth, 
the land of the Pilgrims." The metre is the same as that 
employed in Evangeline, and lends itself readily at times to 
the humorous flow of the story. 

The Divine Comedy. — America has produced four 
consummate translations of great poems — (1) Bryant's 
Homer has already been referred to ; (2) Christopher 
Cranch translated the jEneid into blank verse in 1872 ; 
(3) Bayard Taylor's Faust is the best translation ever made 
from the German ; and (4) Dante's Divine Comedy has 
never been so successfully rendered into any language as 
by Longfellow into English in 1867. 

With the help of Lowell and Charles Eliot Norton, 
Longfellow studied critically every line of the great 
poem, and in his version of it preserved carefully the 
metre of the original. 



LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, AND LOWELL. 107 

Character and Style. — Longfellow was the poet of 
every-day life. His poetry corresponded to his own good 
and generous nature. It was " the voice of the kindest and 
gentlest heart that poet ever bore." 

He represents the best American taste and feeling, but 
the deeper thoughts of our literature are not as well illus- 
trated in him as in other of our poets. 

He was early impressed by the songs and romances of 
Germany, and much of his pensive, dreamy thought and 
style was caught from that literature which he knew and 
loved so well. 

The first important factor in the consideration of his 
work is his extensive scholarship. He was the most widely 
read of all our poets. His life was spent in the still air of 
delightful studies. His poems are full of pleasing sur- 
prises to the scholar. Recollections of ancient Greek and 
Latin poetry or songs of troubadours and minnesingers are 
in them. But Longfellow was master of his learning. 
Although he drew his subjects, and often his style, from 
far-off sources, he was yet always clear and interesting. 

He wrote upon the common lessons of life, which com- 
mended him to the common people. His shorter poems 
were often sermons in song, like " The Psalm of Life." 

Another group of his poems was purely sentimental. 
In them there is a gentle and undefinable melancholy, " a 
feeUng of sadness and longing, that is not akin to pain, and 
resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain." 
Such are " The Day is Done," " Footsteps of Angels," 
" The Reaper and the Flowers," etc. It is these poems 
that bring Longfellow close to the heart of the less culti- 
vated classes. 

Longfellow wrote with a purely literary intention. He 
did, indeed, write a few antislavery poems, but they were 
artistic products, not passionate protests like Whittier's. 

His literary knowledge and fine taste made him the 
most successful of our poets in the metrical arrangement of 



108 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

verse. He experimented with various metres, and usually 
with marked success. In Evangeline and The Courtship of 
Miles Standish he used the difficult hexameter ; in Hia- 
watha he used the singular eight-syllabled trochaic verse ; 
in the " Skeleton in Armor " he employed the vigorous 
measure of Drayton's " To the brave Cambrio-Britons and 
their Harp." 

One peculiarity of the short poems is at once noticed. 
Each contains a single idea. '' The Beleaguered City/' 
" The Arsenal at Springfield," etc. owe their clearness, 
simplicity, and popularity to this trait. 

Perhaps the most conspicuous feature of Longfellow's 
style at all periods of his life is the constant presence of 
analogy. He is always discovering points of resemblance 
and suggesting comparisons. Hence the unusual number 
of similes and metaphors that crowd his poems. The 
word " like " occurs so frequently that it becomes tiresome. 
He visits the arsenal at Springfield, and a comparison of 
the building to a vast organ rises in his mind. He visits 
the glacier of the Rhone, and its shape reminds him of a 
glove ; forthwith it becomes (in Hyperion) " a gauntlet of 
ice, which, centuries ago, Winter, the king of these moun- 
tains, threw down in defiance to the Sun ; and year by 
year the Sun strives in vain to lift it from the ground on 
the point of his glittering spear." 

To him, 

" The hooded clouds like friars 
Tell their beads in drops of rain." 

And for him 

" The cares that infest the day 

Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, 
And as silently steal away." 

He sees 

" The darkness 
Fall from the wiogs of night. 



LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, AND LOWELL. 109 

As a feather is wafted downward 
From an eagle in his flight." 

Place in Literature. — Longfellow was not rugged and 
elemental like Bryant; he had not Bryant's feeling for 
the colossal features of wild scenery. He was not pro- 
foundly thoughtful and transcendental like Emerson. He 
was not so earnestly and passionately sympathetic as 
Whittier. But he was our first artist in poetry. Bryant, 
Emerson, and Whittier commanded but a few stops of the 
grand instrument upon which they played ; Longfellow 
understood perfectly all its capabilities. 

By his fortunate choice of subjects, and his clear, simple, 
and manly treatment of them, he spoke directly to the 
hearts of the people ; but, unlike Whittier, he also at- 
tracted to him by his broad culture another and more crit- 
ical audience. 

He is our most popular poet. He sways in the hearts 
of men and women whose sorrows have been soothed and 
lives raised by his gentle verse. 

" Such songs have power to quiet 

The restless pulse of care, 

And come like the benediction 

That follows after prayer." 

Longfellow's Friends. — When Longfellow entered the 
faculty of Harvard College he gathered about him the best 
minds of Boston and Cambridge. With four of his friends 
he formed a social company called the "Five of Clubs." 
The members were, besides Longfellow, Charles Sumner, 
C. C. Felton, George S. Hillard, and H. R. Cleve- 
land. 

Among his other intimate friends were Louis Agassiz, 
T. W. Parsons, George Washington Greene, and James^ 
Russell Lowell. 

The Five of Clubs. — Cornelius Conway Felton 
(1807-62) was a most enthusiastic Greek scholar. He 



110 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

became professor of Greek at Harvard in 1832, and pro- 
fessor of Greek literature in 1834. He was appointed pres- 
ident of Harvard in 1860. He translated many foreign 
works and edited several Greek text-books. After his 
death were published Familiar Letters from Europe (1864) 
and Greece^ Ancient and Modern (1867). 

George Stillman Hillard (1808-79) was a successful 
lawyer. He was associated with George Ripley in the 
editing of The Christian Register^ and with Sumner in 
the publication of The Jurist, He delivered a number of 
public discourses of considerable merit. The best of them 
were a eulogy on Daniel Webster and an oration On the 
Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Profession. His best 
work was Six Months in Italy (1853). He was the editor of 
a well-known series of Readers and the author of a Life of 
George Ticknor, 

Henry Russell Cleveland (1809-43) published Re- 
marks on the Classical Education of Boys (1834) and a Life 
of Henry Hudson. 

(For Sumner see page 94.) 

Louis Agassiz was born in Switzerland May 28, 1807. 
He came to this country in 1846. He was made professor 
of zoology and geology in the Lawrence Scientific School 
at Cambridge, Mass., in 1848. His industry and enthu- 
siasm in scientific study were enormous. His fame was 
equal to that of Cuvier or Humboldt. He became the 
most inspiring teacher of America, and the history of 
natural science in our country dates its rise from his 
lectures and enthusiastic zeal. He died in Cambridge, 
Mass., December 14, 1873. 

Thomas William Parsons (1819 ), after studying 

at the Boston Latin School, went to Italy and studied 
Italian literature. He commenced a translation of 
Dante's Divine Comedy, which he published complete in 
1867. He published Ghetto di Roma, a volume of poems, 
in 1854. It contained the excellent lines " On a Bust of 



LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, AND LOWELL. Ill 

Dante." (Parsons was the Poet in The Tales of a Way- 
side Inn.) 

George Washington Greene (1811-83) was a grandson 
of General Nathanael Greene of Revolutionary fame. He 
entered Brown University, but left, on account of ill- 
health, before completing his course. In 1837 he was ap- 
pointed United States consul at Rome. In 1848 he was 
made professor of modern languages at Brown. He was 
also for a time professor of history at Cornell. He pub- 
lished Historical Studies (1850), History and Geography of 
the Middle Ages (1851), Historical Vietv of the American 
Revolution (1865), etc. One of Longfellow's last poems, 
"Ultima Thule," was dedicated to Greene. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes was both poet and prose-writer. 
He was a true New Englander, and in all his writings he 
celebrated Boston, whose State-house he called " the hub 
of the solar system." 

He was born in Cambridge, Mass., August 29, 1809. He 
died in Boston, Mass., October 7, 1894. Among his school- 
mates in the Cambridgeport Academy, which he attended 
from his tenth to his fifteenth year, were Margaret Fuller 
and Richard Henry Dana, Jr. He was sent to Harvard 
from the Andover Phillips Academy, and was graduated 
from the college in 1829. He was on the best terms of 
good fellowship with his fellow-collegians, and has com- 
memorated the class in several of his best " occasional " 
poems. Among the members of his class were Benjamin 
Pierce, the mathematician and astronomer; Dr. James 
Freeman Clarke ; and Rev. Samuel F. Smith, who wrote 
" My Country, 'tis of Thee." Pierce, Smith, and others of 
the class are wittily described in the poem " The Boys." 

His first poem, intended for a larger public than the 
college-students, was the eloquent lyric "Old Iron- 
sides," beginning " Ay, tear her tattered ensign down." 
It had been proposed to break up the old frigate Con- 



112 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

stitution, but Holmes's stirring protest in 1830 saved the 
ship. 

Student of Medicine. — Holmes began the study of 
medicine in Boston in 1830. From 1833 to 1836 he studied 
in the medical schools of Europe. In the latter year he 
returned to America, received his degree from Harvard 
College, began the practice of his profession, and published 
his first volume of poems. The volume contained 
"Poetry, a Metrical Essay," "The Last Leaf,'' "My 
Aunt," and the " Height of the Ridiculous." In 1838 he 
was chosen professor of anatomy and physiology in Dart- 
mouth College. In 1847 he accepted a similar position in 
Harvard College. He published several medical works : 
Currents and Counter- Currents in Medical Science (1861), 
Border Lines in Some Provinces of Medical Science (1862), 
Medical Essays (1883). 

Prose Works. — The Atlantic Monthly wsls established in 
1857. In that year Holmes began to publish in it the 
papers which have contributed most to his fame. They 
were republished in three books : The Autocrat of the Break- 
fast Table (1858), Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), 
Poet at the Breakfast Table (1873). The first is the author's 
masterpiece. Humor, satire, and scholarship are skilfully 
mingled in its graceful literary form. It also contains 
some of the best of Holmes's poems, as " The One-Horse 
Shay," " The Chambered Nautilus," etc. A slight thread 
of story runs through the book. The scene is an Ameri- 
can boarding-house, with its typical characters. The cen- 
tral figure is the Autocrat, and the drollery and acute ob- 
servation and suggestive thoughts that run and sparkle 
in the book are the material and the result of his table- 
talk. 

The Professor at the Breakfast Table was not equal to its 
predecessor. The same plan was followed, but it lacked 
the freshness and originality of the incomparable first 
volume. 



LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, AND LOWELL. 113 

The Poet at the Breakfast Table, which appeared after the 
lapse of some years, was somewhat better, and was more 
serious than the other two. 

Between the second and third volumes of the series ap- 
peared two novels : Elsie Venner (1861) and The Guardian 
Angel (1868). The weirdness of these romances recalls 
the manner of Hawthorne. The heroine of the first has 
in her blood the poison and the madness of a serpent. 
Her mother a short time before the birth of the girl was 
bitten by a rattlesnake, and the subtle poison enters into 
and influences the life of the child. 

Myrtle Hazard, the heroine of The Guardian Angel, is 
also an illustration of inherited traits. Her w^ayward, 
lawless freaks and instincts are inherited from distant an- 
cestors, one of whom had been suspected of witchcraft, and 
another of whom had been burned at the stake. 

Holmes's other prose works are Soundings from the At- 
lantic (1864), being reprinted essays from the Atlantic 
Monthly; Mechanism in Thought and Morals (1871), being an 
essay on the functions of the brain ; memoirs of John 
Lothrop Motley (1879) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1884), 
A Mortal Antipathy (1885), and Our Hundred Days in Europe 
(1887). 

His Poetry. — Holmes's volumes of poetry are Urania 
(1846), Astrxa : The Balance of Illusions (1850), Songs in 
Many Keys (1861), Songs of Many Seasons (1875), and The 
Iron Gate (1880). He is the poet of society. No other 
American versifier can rhyme so easily and so gracefully. 
The majority of his productions have been called forth by 
special occasions. More than thirty were read at reunions 
of his old Harvard class. Twice as many more were read 
at Phi Beta Kappa anniversaries, centennials, social enter- 
tainments, and the like. These poems necessarily have 
only a temporary value. They are not a sure passport to 
posterity. They are neat and witty and original. They 
are always happy and full of melody. But their sparkling 



114 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

wit and spontaneity cannot ensure them a permanent 
place in the memories of readers. 

There is, however, another and much smaller group of 
poems which show in richest kind the best qualities of 
poetic art. They are "The Chambered Nautilus," " The 
Living Temple," '' The Voiceless," " The Last Leaf," " The 
Deacon's Masterpiece." 

" The Chambered Nautilus " is a majestic treatment of 
a lofty theme. The Yankee spirit speaks in the " Dea- 
con's Masterpiece," a poem of inimitable and faultless 
humor. " The Last Leaf " wonderfully combines pathos 
and fun, and is perhaps the finest example of his art. 

Holmes was, first of all, a humorist. But the distance 
between the " Ballad of an Oysterman " or " The Spectre 
Pig," and " The Chambered Nautilus " or " The Living 
Temple," denotes the variety of his genius. He could frolic 
in the broadest fun, touch the tenderest emotion, or draw 
deathless lessons from "the ship of pearl." 

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) is our foremost critic, 
essayist, and poet. His popularity has not been as great as 
Longfellow's or Whittier's, but his poetry has expressed 
deeper thoughts and broader culture than that of either of 
his predecessors. As an antislavery poet he was second 
only to Whittier, and many of his verses became watch- 
words of the party he supported. As a public man and 
representative of the United States Government in foreign 
courts he has upheld the noblest ideals of the republic and 
taught the manliest lessons of patriotism. He has ever 
preferred his country to his party, and has criticised wdth 
energy and indignation political evils and sordid selfish- 
ness which have threatened the dignity and honor of 
American citizenship. 

Early Years. — Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., 
February 22, 1819, in the historic " Elmwood " mansion. 
He was graduated at Harvard College in 1838. In 1840 



LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, AND LOWELL. 115 

he was admitted to the bar. He never practised his pro- 
fession, but gave himself entirely to literature. His first 
volume of poems was published in 1841, and was entitled 
A Yearns Life. In 1843 he established a magazine called 
The Pioneer^ to which Hawthorne, Poe, and Whittier con- 
tributed, but which survived only three months. In 1844 
he married Maria White, an abolitionist, who aroused in 
him an active opposition to slavery. Together they con- 
tributed to The Liberty Bell. In the same year he pub- 
lished another volume, containing a narrative poem, A 
Legend of Brittany. 

His first venture in literary criticism was Conversations 
on the Old Poets (1845). 

In 1848 appeared three of Lowell's most important 
poems : The Vision of Sir Launfal, The Biglow Papers, and A 
Fable for Critics. 

Professor and Editor. — In 1851 he visited Europe, but 
returned the following year. In 1855 he was appointed to 
succeed Longfellow as professor of modern languages and 
belles-lettres in Harvard. He again went abroad, and for 
two years studied widely in Italian, French, and Spanish 
before assuming the duties of his professorship. 

The Atlantic Monthly, the foremost literary magazine of 
America, was founded in 1857 by Longfellow, Emerson, 
Holmes, and Lowell. Holmes proposed the name of the 
new magazine, and published in its earliest numbers " The 
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." Lowell was chosen the 
first editor. From 1863 to 1872 he was joint-editor with 
Charles Eliot Norton of the North American Review. 
The capital essays which he contributed to these periodi- 
cals and to Putnam's Monthly have been gathered into three 
volumes : Fireside Travels (1864), Among my Books (1870), 
and My Study Windows (1871). 

Public OflBces. — President Hayes appointed Mr. Low- 
ell in 1877 minister to Spain. In 1880 he was transferred 
to Great Britain. Some of his public addresses while min- 



116 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

ister to England are among the choicest of his writings. 
Several of them are collected in Democracy and Other 
Essays (1887.). 

His Later Poems are the Commemoration Ode (1865) in 
honor of the '' living and dead soldiers of Harvard Uni- 
versity," Under the Willows and Other Poems (1869), The 
Cathedral (1869), and Three Memorial Poems (1876). 

Lowell's home was at '' Elmwood," but the author fre- 
quently crossed the ocean to the England that he loved so 
well. 

Lowell as Poet. — The first noticeable characteristic of 
Lowell's poetry is its variety. He is a humorist, a writer 
of dialect verse, of songs of freedom, and of majestic me- 
morial odes. From the simple rustic charm of " The 
Courtin' " he rises to the lofty thought of The Cathedral, 
Though he dwells upon the perplexing problems of the 
present age, he expresses no syllable of discontent or of 
despair. Like Emerson and Longfellow, he cherishes a 
generous optimism. It is this faith and joy in Nature and 
his own abundant health and hope that make such verses 
as " Pictures from Appledore '' and " Under the Willows '^ 
so sympathetic and spontaneous. 

(1) Humor. — Lowell's quick perception of the comic or 
quaint side of things, and his irrepressible humor, find their 
way into almost everything he does in prose and verse. They 
appear, combined with penetrating criticism, in the Fable 
for Critics^ a good-natured satire on the poets of America. 
In it their virtues and foibles are neatly hit off*. A capital 
contrast is drawn between Emerson and Carlyle ; and the 
criticisms of Poe and Bryant and Hawthorne and Whittier 
are excellent. The poem was, however, carelessly written, 
the language is not well chosen, and many otherwise fine 
passages are marred by vulgarisms and atrocious rhymes. 

His humor is at its best and becomes classic in the Big- 
low Papers, This masterpiece is in two parts : the first 
was called out by the Mexican War ; the second, by the 



LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, AND LOWELL, 117 

Civil War. The poems which composed the first part were 
pointed satires upon the Government and the war party. 
They pretended to be the writings of Hosea Biglow, an 
imaginary character, who cultivated the muse and a farm 
in a New England country-town. They were written in 
the Yankee dialect, and portray the Yankee character as 
no other works have done. The poems of Hosea were cor- 
rected and commented on by the deliciously humorous 
character, Homer Wilbur the learned pastor of the First 
Church in Jaalam (wherever on the map that may be). 

(2) Poems of Freedom, — Lowell's serious political poems 
are the '^ Present Crisis," '' Ode to Freedom," " Capture of 
Fugitive Slaves," "Washing of the Shroud," "Villa 
Franca," the " Commemoration Ode," etc. They cover a 
wide range of history, and they teach a manly courage and 
steadfast adhesion to the right. The " Commemoration 
Ode " is the best literary memorial of the Civil War. 

(3) Descriptions of Nature, — The best of Lowell's poems 
on Nature is " The Vision of Sir Launfal." It is based on 
the old tradition of the San Greal.^ But it is chiefly 
famous, not for the story that it tells nor the moral that it 
draws, but for the superb lines upon June and December 
that it contains. 

Lowell's Prose. — The essays collected in My Study 
Windows and Among my Books cover a wide range of litera- 
ture and show excellent judgment and acute criticism. 
They are full of information, and, still better, breathe the 
spirit of inspiration and enthusiasm. Their faults, which 
are insignificant in comparison with their superb qualities, 
are the faults of his poetry — an unpleasant mingling of the 

■^ The San Greal or Holy Grail, was the cup which held the wine at 
the first celebration of the Lord's Supper. St. Joseph of Arimathea, it 
is said, received some of the blood of Christ in this cup at the crucifix- 
ion, and that it was carried away and hidden by angels. A search for 
it was instituted, and it was believed that no one could ever find it who 
was not perfectly pure in thought, word, and deed. 



118 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

serious and the grotesque, excessive use of rhetorical fig- 
ures, fondness for learned references and for odd or diffi- 
cult words. 

John Grodfrey Saxe (1816-1887), a contemporary of 
Lowell, was a contributor of humorous verse to The Knick- 
erbocker and to Harper^s Magazine. Some of these witty 
verses became very popular, and his Rhyme of the Rail^ 
The Briefless Barrister and The Proud Miss McBride were 
everywhere read and memorized. Jerry the Miller, Pm 
Growing Old^ and The Old Church Bell were of a more 
serious character. Among his published works are The 
Money King and Other Poems (1859) ; The Flying Dutchman, 
or the Wrath of Herr Von Stoppelnose (1862), and The Times, 
The Telegraph, and other Poems (1865). 

Edwin Percy Whipple (1819-86) was a critic of con- 
siderable local fame, and a lifelong friend of Emerson, 
Longfellow, and Lowell. He was a frequent lecturer on 
literary subjects and a contributor to the magazines. His 
first work was Essays and Reviews (1848). He next pub- 
lished Literature and Life (1849). His other works were 
Character and Characteristic Men (1866), Literature of the Age 
of Elizabeth (1876), commonly considered his best work ; 
Recollections of Eminent Men (1887), and American Litera- 
ture and Other Papers (1887). 

Mr. Whipple had read largely, but, it would appear, with- 
out method. His criticism was rather superficial than 
penetrative. His skill in relating an anecdote was greater 
than his skill in interpreting an author. He was a close 
follower of Macaulay, but never caught the charm of his 
style. 




CHAPTER VI. 
The Historians. 

America has produced some of the best historical 
writings of the present century. To conceive and execute 
a great history requires the exercise of the highest literary 
powers. The author must possess imagination and narra- 
tive skill. He must interpret the past, and he must, like 
an artist, make the past to live again for us. 

The chief historians who have added lustre to Ameri- 
can literature in the nineteenth century are William 

HiCKLING PrESCOTT, GeORGE BANCROFT, JoHN LOTHROP 

Motley, and Francis Parkman. Other American his- 
torians of lesser merit are — Jared Sparks, John Gorham 
Palfrey, Richard Hildreth, John Foster Kirk, John 
Bach McMaster, and John Fiske. 

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) was born in 
Salem, Mass., May 4, 1796. He was a grandson of Colonel 
William Prescott, the hero of Bunker Hill. He was gradu- 
ated from Harvard College in 1814, and intended to study 
law, but was prevented by a serious accident. A crust of 
bread thrown across the table at a class dinner struck one 
' of his eyes and destroyed the sight. The other eye be- 
came affected by sympathy, and for six weeks the cheer- 
|ful patient was confined in a totally dark room. The 
heroism of the scholar is not less than the heroism of the 
soldier. Prescott dedicated his life to literature and his- 
tory, and, crippled as he was, produced works which the 

119 



120 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

world will not willingly let die. He mastered the learned 
languages of Europe, and acquired by patient toil a clear 
and charming English style. 

The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella^ his first book, ap- 
peared in 1837. It was the result of eleven years' work. 
His plan was to listen for four hours each day to his 
reader; then to digest and arrange the material of the 
reading. By a marvellous exercise of memory he carried 
in his mind all the facts of his history, and composed to 
his satisfaction chapters of fifty and sixty pages, which 
were then dictated. 

The history covered three important events : the discov- 
ery of America, the conquest of the Moors, and the found- 
ing of the Inquisition. It met with great success, and the 
author was encouraged to continue his studies in Spanish 
history. 

Other Spanish Histories. — In 1843 he published the 
History of the Conquest of Mexico. It was written in a more 
animated and picturesque style than its predecessor, and 
dealt with the romantic and tragic incidents of the most 
absorbing period in the history of Spain. In 1847 ap- 
peared the History of the Conquest of Peru. It is the most 
artistic of his books, and tells in a fascinating way the 
story of the Incas and the Pizarros. 

Prescott died January 28, 1859, in the same year with 
Irving and with Lord Macaulay. He left unfinished a His- 
tory of Philip 77. 

Spanish subjects have proved particularly attractive to 
American scholars. We have seen that Irving's best work 
was done in that field. Indeed, Irving had begun a his- 
tory of the conquest of Mexico, but surrendered it to Pres- 
cott. 

Prescott's biographer, Mr. George Ticknor (1791- 
1871), published in 1849 the History of Spanish Literature, 
a masterly work which is still the standard authority 
upon the subject of which it treats. 



THE HISTORIANS, 121 

Henry Charles Lea (1825 ) of Philadelphia has 

written a scholarly History of the Inquisition of the Middle 
Ages (3 vols., New York, 1888). 

George Bancroft (1800-1891) was born in Worcester, 
Mass., October 3, 1800. After graduating, in 1817, he 
went to Germany, and for five years pursued a wide 
range of studies in the principal universities. His first 
publication was a volume of poems in 1823. He was 
for a few years connected with the Round Hill Classical 
School at Northampton, Mass. The first volume of 
his life-work, The History of the United States, appeared in 
1834. 

Bancroft held several public positions. He was ap- 
pointed in 1838 collector of the port of Boston. He was an 
unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1844, and was Sec- 
retary of the Navy under President Polk. It was through 
his influence that the Naval Academy at Annapolis was 
established. He was minister to England from 1846 to 
1849, '^ and successfully urged upon the British ministry 
the adoption of more liberal laws of navigation and alle- 
giance." He also represented the United States Govern- 
ment in Prussia and in Germany. 

Bancroft was a philosophical historian. He produced 
an exhaustive and authoritative history of the United 
States down to the formation of the Constitution. The 
work is clear, but tedious. It is learned and diff'use. Its 
twelve volumes are almost too much for time and patience, 
but it is none the less a monument to the scholarship and 
unflagging industry of the writer. 

The last volume was published in 1882, and the revised 
edition was issued in 1884, fifty years after the appearance 
of the first volume. 

John Lothrop Motley (1814-77), the greatest of Ameri- 
can historians, was born in Dorchester, Mass., April 15, 
1814. He was educated in Mr. Bancroft's Round Hill 



122 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

School, and from there was sent to Harvard. He com- 
pleted his university studies in Germany. 

In 1839 he published an unsuccessful novel called 
Morton^s Hope. Ten years later appeared a second novel, 
Merry Mount. It was based upon the romantic incident in 
the history of the Massachusetts Colony, of which Thomas 
Morton of Mount WoUaston was the hero. (See page 17.) 

Motley's first historical essay was upon the life and 
character of Peter the Great, and was published in the 
North American Review (1845). 

Histories of Holland. — Historians who would produce 
exhaustive and permanently valuable works concentrate 
their studies upon a single nation or a particular age. 
Irving and Prescott chose Spain ; Motley in 1846 began to 
master the history of Holland. After ten years of patient 
toil he published at his own expense The Rise and Fall of 
the Dutch Republic (1856). Its success was immediate, and 
the obscure author was at once universally recognized as a 
great historian. No historical work combining so many 
elements of greatness had yet been produced in America. 
His second brilliant work was The History of the United 
Netherlands (1860-68). 

From 1861 to 1867 he was minister to Austria. He was 
appointed minister to England, but was recalled in 1870. 

His third and last w^ork, The Life and Death of John of 
Barneveld appeared in 1874. It was perhaps even more 
classic in style than either of its superb predecessors. 

Motley died in Dorchester, England, May 29, 1877. 
Dean Stanley, in a sermon preached in Westminster Ab- 
bey, referred to him as " one of the brightest lights of the 
Western Hemisphere, . . . the indefatigable historian 
who told, as none before him had told, the history of the 
rise and struggle of the Dutch Republic. So long as the 
tale of the greatness of the house of Orange, of the siege of 
Leyden, of the tragedy of Barneveld interests mankind, so 
long will Holland be indissolubly connected with the name 



THE HISTORIANS. 123 

of Motley in the union of the ancient culture of Europe 
with the aspirations of America." 

Motley's learning was more profound than Prescott's, 
his grasp of historical research surer and more compre- 
hensive, and in pictorial power he has surpassed all our 
historians save Parkman. 

His life has been written by Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Francis Parkman (1823-93) surpasses all other writers 
of history in brilliant narrative and in a pure, direct, 
and vigorous style. He too made a single epoch the 
subject of lifelong study, and mastered every detail 
of it. 

He was born in Boston September 16, 1823, and was 
graduated at Harvard in 1844. He lived in Boston in the 
winter, and at Jamaica Plain in the summer. In 1871 he 
was professor of horticulture in the agricultural school of 
Harvard. Like Bancroft, he was fond of flowers, and, like 
him also, was very successful in the cultivation of roses. 
The Lilium Parhnanni was named for him. 

Before he was graduated from Harvard, Parkman had 
conceived the idea of writing on " French-American his- 
tory." For almost fifty years he faithfully pursued his 
studies in the story of the French occupation of this con- 
tinent ; his work was finished by the publication of A 
Half Century of Conflict, 

Preparing for His Histories. — The story he had to 
tell was one of conquest and adventure. The savage allies 
of France in the French and Indian Wars necessarily oc- 
cupied an important place in it. In order to understand 
thoroughly the way of life, the character, and habits of the 
wild natives of America, he started from St. Louis in 1846 
with a hunter guide for the Far West. For several weeks 
he lived with a tribe of the Sioux Indians, sharing in every 
particular their brutal life — choked with smoke in their 
filthy wigwams, feeding with them on bear's grease, fol- 
lowing them in their buffalo hunts among the Black Hills, 



124 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

observing minutely all their ceremonies. The narrative of 
his hardships and adventures is contained in his first book, 
The Oregon Trail (1849). 

Parkman never entirely recovered from the severe phys- 
ical strain of those sickening months. His health was 
never strong, and, like Prescott, he suffered continually 
from partial blindness. He visited and examined every 
spot where events of any importance in his history took 
place. After his sojourn among the Indians he visited 
Europe, studied in foreign archives, and deciphered French 
manuscripts, so that his subject has been studied both from 
life and from books. 

In 1851 appeared his second book, The Conspiracy of 
Pontiac. He also wrote a novel, Vassal Morton^ in 1854. 

French-American History. — The general title of 
Parkman's series of histories is " France and England 
in North America : a Series of Historical Narratives." 
It is the struggle of the two European powers for the pos- 
session of the American continent — a struggle fraught with 
stupendous consequences for this country. (See page 
25.) 

The successive volumes of the group are : 1. Pioneers of 
France in the New World (1865), in two parts — (a) " Hugue- 
nots in Florida ;" (h) " Samuel de Champlain ;" 2. The 
Jesuits in North America (1867) ; 3. La Salle; or, The Dis- 
covery of the Great West (1869) ; 4. The Old Regime in Can- 
ada (1874) ; 5. Count Frontenac; or, New France under Louis 
XIV. (1877); 6. Montcalm and Wolfe (1884); 7. A Half 
Century of Conflict (1893). 

The time covered by these volumes is from the discovery 
of Florida, in 1512, to the taking of Quebec, in 1759. 

The scenes of the events are the shores of the St. Law- 
rence, Quebec, Montreal, Lake Champlain and Ticonde- 
roga, the chain of the great lakes, and the Mississippi 
River to the Far South-west. 

The characters of the books are French noblemen, 



THE HISTORIANS, 125 

Jesuit fathers, Indian braves, explorers, trappers, and 
half-breeds. 

The style is remarkable for vividness. It is hardly pos- 
sible that these histories will ever be supplanted or re- 
written. 

Jared Sparks (1789-1866) edited the writings of George 
Washington in 1834. He was the first editor of the Amer- 
ican Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, He was 
professor of history in Harvard from 1839 to 1849, and 
president of the college until 1853. 

He edited in 1830 The Diplomatic Correspondence of the 
American Revolution, 

He also wrote The Life of Gouverneur Morris (1832). 

Mr. Sparks was the editor of The Library of American 
Biography and edited the Works of Benjamin Franklin, 
American history is indebted to him for his thorough and 
careful editing of important works. 

John Gorham Palfrey (1796-1881) was a graduate of 
Harvard, and succeeded Edward Everett as pastor of the 
Brattle Street Unitarian Church in Boston. He held many 
important public offices, and was an early antislavery 
advocate. 

His important work was The History of New England to 
1875 (4 vols., 1858-64). His style is clear, but not vivid. 
His manner is not sprightly nor rhetorical, but is careful 
and conscientious. 

Richard Hildreth (1807-65) was born in Deerfield, 
Mass., June 22, 1807, and was graduated at Harvard in 
1826. He practised law in Newburyport and Boston 
until 1832, when he became editor of the Boston Atlas, 
His earliest work was Archy Moore (1836), the first anti- 
slavery novel. 

In 1855 he published Japan as it Wa^ and Is, 

His most important work, the History of the United 
States^ in six volumes, was published from 1849 to 1856. 
For the ordinary reader this is much the best history of 



126 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

the country. It has not so much rhetoric as Bancroft's, 
but its literary merit is higher. The style is clear and the 
arrangement orderly. Bancroft and Hildreth represent 
different political ideas. The former adheres in his history 
to the Democratic party, and exalts the importance of Jef- 
ferson in the evolution of our Government. The latter 
makes Hamilton his central and most imposing figure. 

Mr. Hildreth died at Florence, Italy, July 11, 1865. 

John Foster Kirk (1824 ) was secretary to Wil- 
liam H. Prescott, and assisted in preparing all the his- 
torian's later works. He has published the History of Charles 
the Bold (1863-68), an admirable work which was warmly 
praised by E. A. Freeman. He was for some time lecturer 
on European history at the University of Pennsylvania. 

John Fiske (1842 ) is the most eloquent of histor- 
ical lecturers. He first became known as a student of phil- 
osophy and an interpreter of the scientific doctrine of evo- 
lution. He was recognized as the ablest representative in 
America of the philosophy of Herbert Spencer. 

When he turned his attention to history it was to apply 
the evolutionary principle to the explanation of historic 
facts. 

He has published Myths and Myth-Makers (1872), Out- 
lines of Cosmic Philosophy (1874), Darwinism and Other Es- 
says (1879), Excursions of an EvohUionist (1883), The Destiny 
of Man (1884), American Political Ideas (1885), and The 
Cintical Period in American History (1888). He is about to 
publish a comprehensive History of the American People. 

John Bach McMaster (1852 )is publishing an ex- 
cellent and very minute History of the People of the United 
States. It was begun in 1870. Four volumes have already 
appeared. Mr. McMaster, who is professor of American 
history in the University of Pennsylvania, has also written 
a good Life of Benjamin Franklin in the American Men-of- 
Letters series. 




CHAPTER VII. 

Edgar Allan Poe and Other Southern 

Poets. 



Edg-ar Allan Poe, after Nathaniel Hawthorne, is the 
greatest literary genius of America. His life and his writ- 
ings belong to an altogether different world from that in 
which Emerson, Longfellow, and Lowell moved. His life 
was a tragedy. It was not lived in conformity with the 
moral law. It was a constant struggle with poverty, full 
of the acutest suffering, and embittered by his sensitive 
pride. 

He was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. He was but 
two years old when his parents, both of whom were actors, 
died, within a week of each other, at Richmond, Va. The 
child was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a wealthy tobacco- 
merchant in Richmond. Poe was brought up in luxury 
and carefully educated. He was taken to England and 
put to school at Stoke-Newington, near London. On his 
return to America he entered the University of Virginia 
(1826), where he learned to gamble, but altogether neglected 
his studies. At the end of his first year he had con- 
tracted so many debts that he was removed from college. 
He quarrelled with Mr. Allan, who would no longer coun- 
tenance his bad habits and reckless extravagance. Leav- 
ing Richmond, he made his way to Boston, and there, in 
1827, he published his first work, Tamerlane and Other 
Poems. 

127 



128 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In the following year he enlisted in the United States 
army under the name of Edgar A. Perry, and served for 
more than a year as private and as sergeant-major. On 
the death of Mrs. Allan he returned on a furlough to 
Richmond, was reconciled to his foster-father, and through 
his influence was admitted to West Point. He was at first 
successful, but he soon wearied of the discipline, neglected 
his studies, drifted into his former intemperate habits, and 
was expelled. He then went to Baltimore, where he wrote 
a prize-story — '^ A Manuscript Found in a Bottle " — which 
proved his first success. 

On the recommendation of John P. Kennedy he was 
appointed editor of the Southern Literary Messenger at Rich- 
mond. He then began to write the sombre and mys- 
terious tales upon which his future fame was largely to 
rest. He was married in 1836, and in the next year re- 
signed his post and went to New York. In that city and 
in Philadelphia he engaged in journalism. He edited 
Burtonh Magazine in New York, Grahamh Magazine in 
Philadelphia, and was connected with the Evening Mirror 
and Broadway Journal in New York. In every case he lost 
his position through intemperance or through quarrelling 
with the publisher. He lived at this time a wayward Bo- 
hemian life, doing all manner of literary hack-work, and 
recklessly staggering from bad to w^orse. He published in 
these years Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), Tales 
of the Arabesque and Grotesque (1839), The Gold Bug (1840), 
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841). 

On the 28th of January, 1845, in the Evening Mirror ap- 
peared his poem of "The Raven." 

In Godey^s Lady^s Book he published " The Literati of 
New York," a series of criticisms, partly just and partly 
brutal, upon American writers. They awoke bitter ani- 
mosities which are not yet forgotten. 

" Eureka, a prose-poem," of which Poe thought highly, 
was published in 1848. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE, ETC, 129 

His wife had died in 1847, and soon after he formed an 
engagement with a widow in Richmond. He started for 
New York (September 30, 1849) to arrange for the wed- 
ding, but met some of his old miUtary companions, and on 
the 3d of October was found unconscious in a tavern in 
Baltimore. He was taken to a hospital, where he died of 
delirium tremens. 

His Poetry. — Poe's popularity as a poet began with 
" The Raven " (1845). The volume in which it was pub- 
lished contained also several lyrics ; among them were " Val- 
ley of Unrest," " The Sleeper," " Israfel," " City in the Sea," 
" To One in Paradise," " Eulalie," and " The Conqueror 
Worm." When to these few poems we add " Ulalume," 
"The Bells," "Annabel Lee," " The Haunted Palace," and 
" To Helen," we have named almost everything of value in 
Poe's poetic work. 

" The Raven " is, to the general reader, the one poem 
that Poe wrote. It is not his best, but it is entitled to an 
unique place in literature. It is the poem of despair. The 
bird has caught its pitiless cry of " nevermore " from 
some unhappy master whom unfortunate disaster fol- 
lowed fast and followed faster, until his songs one burden 
bore, till the dirges of his hope the melancholy burden 
bore, of " Never, nevermore." The poem is grotesque, 
pathetic, tragic. Its melody is forced and artificial. 

It is needless to discuss the merits and the style of the 
individual poems. They illustrate one subject and one 
manner. 

In defining poetry, Poe wrote, " Music is the perfection 
of the soul or the idea of poetry ; the vagueness of exalta- 
tion aroused by a sweet air (which should be indefinite 
and never too strongly suggestive) is "precisely what we 
should aim at in poetry." And again he defined poetry 
as "the rhythmic creation of the beautiful." Every line 
of his own poetry is in accord with this definition. He 
created vague images of beauty. He produced gloomy 

9 



130 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and terrible poems which appeal to the imagination, not 
to the intellect nor the heart. It is useless to seek in them 
for philosophic ideas or for moral lessons. The reader 
abandons himself to a current of melodious farucy. In 
mastery of the resources of poetic harmony Poe has had 
no equal in America. Like Coleridge and Shelley, he was 
keenly sensitive to sound ; he heard in his dreams the 
tinkling footfalls of seraphim, and subordinated every- 
thing in his verse to the delicious effects of musical 
sound. 

His Prose Tales. — Poetry, Poe said, was not a pursuit 
with him, but a passion. His best strength and fullest 
imagination were reserved for his prose tales, and those 
tales have obtained unbounded popularity. Like his 
poems, they are all contained within a narrow sphere and 
exhibit the same peculiarities. Their names suggest their 
gloomy and sometimes fearful subjects : " The Murders in 
the Rue Morgue," " The Mystery of Marie Roget," and 
" The Purloined Letter," which were predecessors of the 
modern detective story ; " The Gold Bug " and " Hans 
Pfaal," extravagant tales of the Jules Verne type ; " The 
Black Cat," " The Fall of the House of Usher," and " The 
Cask of Amontillado," sombre stories of terror and of pas- 
sion. 

A comparison is naturally suggested between Haw- 
thorne and Poe. The latter never produced a long and 
complete work like two or three of Hawthorne's, but the 
subjects which attracted the two writers had something in 
common. Both chose weird and dreary subjects and inci- 
dents of morbid psychology. But Hawthorne was dis- 
tinctly moral in all his writing. Poe had no moral feeling 
whatever. Leslie 'Stephen, the English critic, has de- 
scribed Poe as " Hawthorne and delirium tremens." 

Hawthorne paid particular attention to his story. Poe 
regarded most the effect which the story would produce. 
In artistic construction he was not far behind Hawthorne. 



EDGAR ALLAN FOE, ETC. 131 

He excelled in vivid descriptions, in orderly arrangement 
of the parts of his plots, and in steady, undeviating progress 
toward the climax and conclusion of a story. His lan- 
guage, too, deserves notice because of his skill in the man- 
agement of sentences and because of his rare gift in the 
choice of words. 

Other Southern Poets.— Francis Scott Key (1779- 
1843) was a native of Maryland. He is famous for a sin- 
gle poem, " The Star-Spangled Banner." 

Richard Henry Wilde was born in DubUn Sept. 24, 
1789, and died in New Orleans, La., Sept. 10, 1847. He 
was also the author of a single popular poem, " My Life is 
Like the Summer Rose." 

Edward Co ate Pinkney was born in London Oct. 1, 
1802, and died in Baltimore April 11, 1828. His popular 
poem was ''' The Health," beginning — 

" I fill this cup to one made up 
Of loveliness alone." 

George Henry Calvert was born in Prince George 
County, Maryland, Jan. 2, 1803, and died in Newport, 
R. L, in 1889. He made several translations from the 
German and published a few original dramas. 

Albert Pike (1809 ) was born in Boston Dec. 29, 

1809, but has made his home in the South. His best 
work is entitled Hymns to the Gods (1839). His often- 
quoted poem, " To a Mocking-Bird," is a close copy of 
Keats's " Ode to a Nightingale." 

Pendleton Cooke (1816-50), a Virginian by birth and 
residence, wrote Froissart Ballads and Other Poems. He is 
remembered, however, for his pretty lyric, " Florence 
Vane." His brother, John Esten Cooke (1830-86), wrote 
a number of stories and books relating to Virginia. 

Paul Hamilton Hayne, a nephew of the statesman 
Robert Y. Hayne, was born in Charleston, S. C, January 



132 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

1, 1830, and died near Augusta, Georgia, July 6, 1886. He 
was reduced to poverty by the Civil War. He did more 
than any other Southern writer to awaken an interest in 
the higher forms of Hterature. He has been called " The 
Laureate of the South." He published Sonnets and Other 
Poems (1855), Avolio : A Legend of the Island of Cos (1869), 
Legends and Ijyrics (1872), The Mountain of the Lovers and 
Other Poems (1873). 

Henry Timrod (1829-67) was another fine poetic genius 
impoverished by the Civil War. Like Hayne and W. G. 
SiMMS, he was a native of Charleston, S. C. He wrote 
many stirring lyrics during the war. The gentleness of his 
spirit and purity of his thought found expression in a 
style which, though not strong, was singularly melodious. 

Abram Joseph Ryan (1839-1886), a Virginian by birth, 
widely known as Father Ryan, was ordained a priest of the 
Roman Catholic Church, and became a chaplain in the 
Confederate army. After the surrender of Lee he wrote 
The Conquered Banner. He edited various religious peri- 
odicals, and for a time was pastor of a church in Mobile. 
His Poems, Patriotic, Religious, and Miscellaneous, were pub- 
lished in 1880. His poems are deservedly popular, and 
are growing in favor with the most critical judges; to 
that catholic sentiment which has lent such beauty to 
English literature in the works of Crashaw and Faber and 
Newman they add a fervor and devotion which is as a cry 
from the heart of the Southern Confederacy. 

Sidney Lanier, the writer of widest scholarship and 
broadest mind among the poets of the South, was born in 
Macon, Georgia, February 3, 1842, and died at Lynn, N. 
C, September 7, 1881. His experiences as a Confederate 
soldier he put into a novel called Tiger Lilies (1867). In 
1879 he was appointed lecturer on English literature in 
the Johns Hopkins University. His prose works are 
The Boys' Froissart (1878), The Boys' King Arthur (1880), 
Science of English Verse (1880), The Bnys' Mabinogion (1881), 



EDGAR ALLAN POE, ETC, 133 

The Boys' Percy (1882), The English Novel (1883). His 
most elaborate poem was entitled "Sunrise." 

Lanier's poems are disfigured by one of the most com- 
mon defects of our contemporary poetry — a constant striv- 
ing and straining after novelty of expression. His style 
is never restful ; it is always aiming at sensational effect. 
Every line is loaded with extravagant imagery, and the 
old familiar phrases of our language assume under his im- 
patient hands new and odd forms. To that simplicity 
which is the highest beauty Lanier never attained. 




CHAPTER VIII 



The Novelists. 

From Cooper to the Civil War. 

Brown and Cooper were our first novelists ; Hawthorne 
and Poe were our last romancers. During the past forty 
years the novel has steadily advanced. It has aimed at 
the interpretation of different phases of American life. It 
has found its subjects in all parts of the country. It has 
helped forward great causes. One novel in particular, 
TJncU Torri's Cabin, exerted a mighty influence in the anti- 
slavery movement. The development of the novel has 
been most rapid since the Civil War^ and the best Ameri- 
can writers of the present day find their most congenial 
task in the field of fiction. 

Catherine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867) is the nearest 
of our novelists to Cooper in point of time. Her first book, 
A New England Tale, was published anonymously in 1822. 
It was followed by Redwood (1824). Both were very pop- 
ular, and were translated into several European languages. 
Hope Leslie; or, Early Times in Massachusetts (1827), Clar- 
ence: A Tale of Our Own Times (1830), The Linwoods ; or, 
Sixty Years Since in America (1835), were among the best 
of her other books. They are all tedious reading. A few 
have some value from their graphic pictures of character 
and manners in Massachusetts ; but most of them are 
marred by petty sermons upon insignificant matters. 

Lydia Maria Child (1802-80) was a writer of much 

X34 



THE NOVELISTS. 135 

greater force than Miss Sedgwick. Her first novel, Hobo- 
mok, was published in 1821. It was a story of the early 
settlement of the country. In the next year appeared 
The Rebels : A Tale of the Revolution. Philothea, a romance 
of Athens in the age of Pericles, was published in 1835. 
Mrs. Child was a steadfast advocate of the anti-slavery 
cause, and wrote much in defence of her principles. She 
also wrote many excellent works for the young. 

John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870) was the first of 
the Southern novelists. He had a long and honorable 
political career. He wrote Swallow Barn (1832), Horseshoe 
Robinson (1835), and Rob of the Bowl (1838). The first, 
which was his best work, was a story of rural life in Vir- 
ginia ; the second described South Carolina in Revolution- 
ary times ; the last related scenes and incidents in Mary- 
land under the second Lord Baltimore. It is interesting 
to remember that Kennedy wrote the fourth chapter of the 
second volume of Thackeray's Virginians, which accounts 
for the accuracy of its descriptions of local scenery. 

William Gilmore Simms was the most prolific of the 
Southern writers. He was born in Charleston, S. C, April 
17, 1806. He essayed every kind of literature, but was 
most successful in fiction. Many of his novels are histori- 
cal, and nearly all have Southern scenes. He followed 
Cooper in the " novel of adventure." His stories are full 
of lively incident, but they are rude in style, hastily writ- 
ten, and plainly show the striving of the author after 
startling effects. His best novel is The Yemassee (1835). 
Out of the host of his works may be selected for especial 
mention. The Partisan (1835), Richard Hurdis (1838), Carl 
Werner (1838), Border Beagles (1840), Beauchampe (1842), 
Castle Dismal (1845), The Wigwam and the Cabin (1845), 
The Scout (1854), The Forayers (1855), and The Maroon 
(1855). 

Among his more serious works are the History of South 
Carolina (1840), Life of Francis Marion (1844), Life of Na- 



136 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

ihanael Greene (1849), and South Carolina in the Revolution 
(1854). Simms died in Charleston, June 11, 1870. 

Robert Montgomery Bird (1803-54) carried on Coop- 
er's " novel of adventure," but without a tithe of Cooper's 
ability. He began his literary career with writing trage- 
dies, one of which. The Gladiator^ became a favorite with 
Edwin Forrest. His first two novels, Calavar (1834) and 
The Infidel (1835), described Mexico during the Spanish 
conquest. His other fictions were extravagant accounts 
of wild life in Kentucky, in which Indians, bowie-knives, 
and tomahawks abounded. Their titles are significant of 
their contents : The Hawks of Hawk Hollow ^ Sheppard Lee, 
Nick of the Woods, Peter Pilgrim, and Robin Day. They 
were the predecessors of the dime novel. 

William Starbuck Mayo (1812 ) is the author of 

Kaloolah, a novel of Munchausen-like adventures in 
Africa, and purporting to be the autobiography of one 
Jonathan Romer. Certain foolish critics have asserted 
that this novel suggested to Mr. Rider Haggard some of 
the scenes of his African romances. 

Herman Melville (1819-1891) was born in New York 
August 1, 1819. He lived a life of adventure, and chron- 
icled his romantic experiences in his books. In 1841 he 
embarked in a whaling-vessel bound for the South Pacific. 
With one companion he deserted while the ship lay in the 
harbor of Nukahiva, one of the Marquesas Islands. 
Among the mountains of the island they fell in with a 
race of cannibals (the Typees), by whom they were kept 
in captivity, though kindly treated, for four months. 
Melville finally escaped on an Australian whaler. 

In 1846 he published Typee, in which he related the 
incidents of his four months' life among the canni- 
bals. In the following year he continued the narrative 
in a second book, entitled Omoo. His other works are 
Mardi, and a Voyage Thither (1848), White Jacket; or, The 
World in a Man-of-War (1850), Mohy Dick; or. The Whale 



THE NOVELISTS, 137 

(1851), Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852), The Piazza Tales 
(1856), and The Confidence-Man (1857). 

Sylvester Judd (1813-53) was a graduate of Yale and 
a Unitarian clergyman. He wrote several books, but only 
one of note. The work which will always be associated 
with his name is Margaret : A Tale of the Real and the Ideal 
(1845). Lowell called it " the first Yankee book with the 
soul of Down East in it." The book has been much over- 
praised. It is not very interesting reading ; it is crude in 
its style, and the progress of the story is often interrupted 
that a tedious sermon may be inserted. There is, how- 
ever, a very decided value attaching to those parts of the 
book which depict in a faithful and masterly way the 
manner of life in an outlying New England town directly 
after the close of the Revolution. 

After the Civil War. 

JosiAH Gilbert Holland was born in Belchertown, 
Mass., July 24, 1819. He was educated at the Northamp- 
ton High School. He studied medicine, and began the 
practice of his profession at Springfield. His literary am- 
bition led him to undertake the publication of a literary 
paper, which, however, lived but six months. He taught 
school in Richmond, Va., and was superintendent of pub- 
lic schools in Vicksburg, Miss. On his return to Massa- 
chusetts he became one of the editors of the Springfield 
Republican. 

His first work was the History of Western Massachusetts 
(1855). Then followed The Bay-Path (1857), Timothy Tit- 
combos Letters to Young People (1858), Bitter Sweet (1858), 
Gold-Foil Hammered from Popular Proverbs (1859), Miss 
Gilbert's Career, a novel (1860), Lessons in Life (1861), Let- 
ters to the Joneses (1863), Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects 
(1865), Life of Abraham Lincoln (1865), Kathrina, a poem 
(1866), Arthur Bonnicastle, a novel (1873), The Mistress of 
the Manse, a poem (1874). 



138 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

The Bay-Path was an historical novel of the early settle- 
ment of the Connecticut Valley ; it was not at first success- 
ful, but the books which immediately followed it became 
very popular. 

In 1870, Mr. Holland became editor of Scribner^s Monthly. 
In it appeared his last books, ^' Sevenoaks " (1875) and 
" Nicholas Minturn " (1876). 

He died in New York October 21, 1881. 

Edward Everett Hale, a Unitarian clergyman, has 
written a large number of excellent stories. He was born 
in Boston, Mass., April 3, 1822, and was graduated at Har- 
vard in 1839. He has lived a busy life, engaging actively 
in many philanthropic movements. He has had a large 
experience in journalism, and has been much sought after 
as a lecturer. His sermons, too, abound in fine literary 
criticism and suggestions for public welfare. 

His literary fame rests upon his short stories. They 
aim to teach some leading idea, and are often lit up with 
sparkling humor. The laughable story, " My Double, and 
How he Undid me " (1859), first attracted public attention. 
His most powerful story, " The Man Without a Country," 
was published anonymously in the Atlantic Monthly in 
1863. It has become a " classic," and deserves its fame 
by reason of the truthfulness of its style and the impres- 
sive lesson it conveys. No better sermon upon patriotism 
has ever been preached. 

Among his other works are Margaret Percival in Amer- 
ica (1850), If, YeSj and Perhaps (1868), The Ingham Papers 
(1869), Ten Times One is Ten (1870), In His Name (1874), 
Philip Nolan^s Friends (1876), Gone to Texas (1877), Seven 
Spanish Cities (1883), and Franklin in France (1887). 

John Townsend Trowbridge has written several novels 
of adventure, some capital stories for boys, and a few meri- 
torious poems. 

He was born in Ogden, New York, September 18, 1827. 
His early life was a struggle with poverty. His literary 



THE NOVELISTS. 139 

life began in New York, where he has been connected with 
several magazines and newspapers. 

Among his books are Father Brighthopes (1853), Burr- 
cliff (1853), Martin Merrivale, His X Mark (1.854), Iron- 
thorpe (1855), Neighbor Jackwood (1857), The Old Battle- 
Ground (1859), Cudjo^s Cave, a story of the adventures of a 
runaway slave (1864), Coupon Bonds, a humorous story of 
rural life in New England (1871). 

In 1866, Mr. Trowbridge published The South, a large 
book giving descriptions of the Southern cities and battle- 
fields of the Civil War. 

His best-known poem is " The Vagabonds," originally 
published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1863. 

Women Writers of Fiction. — Among the women novel- 
ists who have done their best work since the Civil War are 
Adeline D. T. Whitney, Rose Terry Cooke, Rebecca 
Harding Davis, Louise Chandler Moulton, Harriet 
Elizabeth Spofford, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Con- 
stance Fenimore Woolson, Frances Hodgson Burnett, 
Sarah Orne Jewett, and Mary Noailles Murfree. 

Adeline D. T. Whitney (1824 ) has written many 

stories for young people. Among the best of them are 
Boys at Chequasset (1862), Faith Gartney^s Girlhood (1868), 
The Gayworthys (1865), A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite^s 
Life (1866), We Girls (1870), Real Folks (1871). She has 
also written a few volumes of poems — Pansies (1872) and 
Bird Talk (1887). 

Rose Terry Cooke (1827 ) has written many short 

stories and magazine sketches, mainly upon New England 
village-life. Miss Lucinda, Ann Potter^s T^esson, Turkey 
Tracks, The Deacon^s Week, etc. are delightfully humorous 
and genuinely truthful. 

Her poems show greater melody than Mrs. Whitney's. 

" The Two Villages " (one of the living, the other of the 
dead) is the best known of her poems. 

Rebecca Harding Davis (1831 ) has found her sub- 



140 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

jects among the lower classes of society. Her first im- 
portant story was Life in the Lron Mills (1861). She has 
since published Margaret Howth (1861), Waiting for the 
Verdict (1867), Dallas Galbraith (1868), A Law Unto Her- 
self (1878). 

Louise Chandler Moulton (1835 ) has contributed 

to the New York Tribune and other papers. She has writ- 
ten in both prose and poetry, but has been most successful 
with her children's stories. 

Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford (1835 ) 

has wTitten more vivid and more original stories than any 
female writer of our time. Her reputation was made by 
an admirable story called " In a Cellar," published in the 
Atlantic Monthly in 1859. Mrs. Spofford's stories show 
wide reading and a remarkable mastery of language and 
intense feeling. The descriptions of nature are luxuriant 
and profuse. Among her books are Sir Rohan^s Ghost 
(1859), The Thief in the Night (1872), Marquis of Carabas 
(1882), Hester Stanley at St. Marks (1883). 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844 ) is the author of 

The Gates Ajar (1868), The Silent Partner (1870), An Old 
Maid^s Paradise (1879), Sealed Orders (1879), and Jack the 
Fisherman (1887). 

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in Manchester, 
England, in 1849. Her parents came to America in 1865 
and settled in Tennessee. 

Her first novel. That Lass o' Lowrie^s, is still her best. It 
is a story of the Lancashire mines, and written in the dia- 
lect with which the author had been familiar as a child. 
It was issued in Scribner^s Magazine and published in book 
form in 1877. Her other novels are Haworth'^s (1879), 
Louisiana (1880), A Fair Barbarian (1880), Through One 
Administration (1883), and the very popular Little Lord 
Fauntleroy (1886). 

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849 ) is the author of 

Deephaven (1877), Old Friends and New (1879), Country By- 



THE NOVELISTS. 141 

ways (1881), A Country Doctor (1884), A Marsh Island 
(1885). 

Mary Noailles Murfree, who writes under the name 
of " Charles Egbert Craddock,'' was born near Murfrees- 
borough, Tenn., in 1850. Her stories are of the Tennessee 
mountains, full of local color and in the local dialect. 
They are — In the Tennessee Mountains (1884), Where the Bat- 
tle was Fought (1884), Down the Ravine (1885), The Prophet 
of the Great Srn,oky Mountains (1885), In the Clouds (1886). 

Howells and James. — The two men who best repre- 
sent the American novel at the present time are William 
Dean Howells and Henry James, Jr. Both have a def- 
inite theory of the function of the novel, and both are mas- 
ters of style. The theory which they entertain of their 
art has won for them the name of " realists." They be- 
lieve that it is not the province of the novel to tell a story, 
that the stories have all been told, and that the novelist 
must aim to produce minute studies of certain aspects of 
life and types of character. The books they have produced 
are rather photographic than artistic. They shun impos- 
ing characters and thrilling incidents, and make much of 
uninteresting people and the ordinary events of our social 
life. In reading either novelist, but particularly Mr. How- 
ells, we feel that we are in the hands of an expert stylist ; 
though we sometimes weary of the monotonously clever 
manner, and wish for larger subjects and more sympa- 
thetic treatment. 

William Dean Howells was born in Martin's Ferry, 
Ohio, March 1, 1837. He learned to set type in his father's 
newspaper office before he was twelve years old. After a 
varied experience as compositor and journalist he pub- 
lished, with John J. Piatt, in 1860, Poems of Two Friends. 
He was appointed consul to Venice by President Lincoln. 
During his four years' residence in that city he mastered 
the Italian language and literature, developed his own 
exquisite style, and made the observations which took 



142 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

shape in Venetian Life (1866) and Ltalian Journeys (1867). 
From 1872 to 1881 he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly^ 
and since 1886 he has conducted the " Editor's Study " in 
Harper^s Magazine, 

His first attempt at story-telling was l^heir Wedding 
Journey (1871). It was a transcript of real life, the de- 
scription of a bridal trip across New York State. A more 
complete novel was A Chance Acquaintance (1873), which 
is a description of a holiday trip upon the St. Lawrence 
to Quebec and the Saguenay. 

A Foregone Conclusion was published in 1874, A Counter^ 
feit Presentment in 1877, The Lady of the Aroostook in 1878. 

The Undiscovered Country (1880) was a study in Spirit- 
ualism in New England. 

His best novel, A Modern Lnstance, appeared in 1883. 
His other books are — A Fearful Responsibility (1882), Dr. 
Breen^s Practice (1883), A Woman's Reason (1884), The 
Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), Tuscan Cities (1885), The Min- 
ister's Charge (1886), Lndian Summer (1886). 

He has also written a number of admirable little com- 
edies, '* trifles light as air." Such are — The Parlor Car^ 
The Sleeping Car^ The Elevator, and The Register. 

Henry James, Jr., was born in New York City April 
15, 1843. He came of a literary family, and was carefully 
educated in foreign cities. His father was a distinguished 
theologian, and his elder brother is now professor of phil- 
osophy in Harvard College. 

Mr. James is the originator of the international novel. He 
has lived so much abroad that he is as much European as 
American. His style and his subjects have alike been in- 
fluenced by his wide study of French literature. Most of 
his works exhibit the contrast between American and Eu- 
ropean life. When the scene is laid in Europe the chief 
characters are American travellers coming for the first time 
in contact with the society of the Old World. Such books 
are Daisy Miller, Pension Beaurepas, and A Bundle of Letters, 



THE NOVELISTS. 143 

When the scene is laid in America the points of difference 
between European and American manners are indicated 
by introducing among the characters foreigners and trav- 
elled Americans. Instances are, The Europeans and an 
International Episode, 

The first of his long novels was Roderick Hudson (1875). 
A Passionate Pilgrim and Other Stories (1875) was a collec- 
tion of his stories in the magazines. It contained, among 
others, " The Last of the Valerii " and the " Madonna of 
the Future." The American appeared in 1878, and in the 
same year also Daisy Miller was published. In 1878, Mr. 
James published The Europeans and an excellent volume 
of criticism entitled French Poets and Novelists. 

His other works are — Washington Square (1880), The 
Portrait of a Lady (1881), Portraits of Places (1884), Tales of 
Three Cities (1884), Princess Casamassima (1886), and The 
Bostonians, like The Undiscovered Country, a study in New 
England Spiritualism (1886). 

Other Novelists. — Edward Eggleston (1837 ) has 

written a few novels describing life in Southern Indiana. 
The first and best was The Hoosier Schoolmaster (1871). 
The others were the End of the World (1872), Mystery of 
Metropolisville (1873), The Circuit-Rider (1874), and The 
Hoosier School-boy (1883). 

George W. Cable (1844 ) has found his subjects 

in Louisiana. He has tried to picture the social life along 
the Gulf, and particularly to depict the manners and 
traditions of the Creoles. His books are — Old Creole Days 
(1879), The Grandissimes (1880), Madame Delphine (1881), 
Dr. Sevier (1883), The Creoles of Louisiana (1884), and The 
Silent South (1885). Mr. Cable has succeeded in producing 
readable and artistic works, but they are not to be taken 
as accurate representations of Creole life. 

Francis Marion Crawford (1845 ), a son of 

Thomas Crawford, the sculptor, is the author of Mr, Isaacs 
(1882), Doctor Claudius (1883), A Roman Singer (1884), To 



144 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Leeward (1884), An American Politician (1885), Zoroaster 
(1885), Tale of a Lonely Parish (1886), and Saracinesca 
(1886). 

His works are peculiarly interesting to the student of 
Italy. They are infused with Italian life and spirit, and 
their very language is curiously affected by the author's 
intimate knowledge of Italian. 

Lew Wallace (1827 ) is one of the most popular 

of living novelists. Of his Ben Hur : A Tale of the Christ, 
more than four hundred thousand copies have been sold. 
His other novels. The Fair God, a story of the conquest 
of Mexico by Cortez, and The Prince of India (1893), are 
no less popular, but none of his writings have any remark- 
able literary gift or grace. They are animated and at 
times vivid, and the interest of the situation and the rapid- 
ity of movement veil the imperfections of style. General 
Wallace's large experience in the Mexican War and 
throughout the Civil War has been of signal service to 
him in his vigorous battle-pieces and sketches of brave 
life. 

Charles King (1844 ), another soldier, a graduate 

of West Point, has found a wide circle of admirers for his 
stories of adventure and his dashing heroes. He has writ- 
ten The GoloneVs Daughter, From the Ranks, The Deserter, 
Dunraven Ranch, Kitty^s Conquest, Captain Blake, and a num- 
ber of other stories of army life. 




CHAPTER IX. 

After the Civil War. 

The Poets. 

The Civil War of 1861 produced but little literature 
of note. A number of battle-pieces and a few occasional 
poems exhaust its contributions to our literature. The 
years from 1830 to 1860 had been most fruitful in good 
books in both prose and poetry. Since the war the num- 
ber of writers and of readers has greatly increased, but the 
works produced have been of a sensibly inferior quality. 

Many meritorious histories have been written of the na- 
tional struggle, among which those by Greeley, Stephens, 
and Draper are especially deserving of mention. Wilson's 
Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America is an indispen- 
sable aid to the student of the events that culminated 
in the Civil War. Interesting historic memorials have 
also been produced by Generals Sherman, Grant, and 
Sheridan. 

1. Poetry of the War. — As the Revolutionary War 
gave rise to numerous patriotic ballads, so the Civil War 
produced several patriotic lyrics. Among the most famous 
of the latter are Whittier's " Barbara Frietchie ;" T. Bu- 
chanan Read's '^Sheridan's Ride;" Francis M. Finch's 
"The Blue and the Gray," a Decoration Day poem; 
Julia Ward Howe's " Battle-Hymn of the Republic ;" 
James R. Randall's "Maryland, my Maryland," which, 

10 146 



146 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

has been called "the Marseillaise of the Confederate 
cause;" Ethel Lynn Beers's "All Quiet along the Poto- 
mac ;" George Frederick Root's " Battle-Cry of Freedom ;" 
and Albert Pike's "Dixie." 

Lowell's " Commemoration Ode " is the best literary 
memorial of the war, but the poets who distinctly belong 
to the struggle, and derive whatever fame they have from 
it, are Henry Howard Brownell and Forceythe Willson. 

Henry Howard Brownell (1820-72) was appointed 
acting ensign on the flag-ship " Hartford " by Admiral 
Farragut. He was in the battle of Mobile Bay and in the 
" passage of the forts " below New Orleans. The former 
he commemorated in the "Bay Fight;" the latter, in the 
" River Fight." They are his best poems. He has been 
called by Dr. Holmes " Our Battle Laureate." He pub- 
lished Lyrics of a Day (1864) and War Lyrics (1866). 

Forceythe Willson (1837-67) was the author of the 
very familiar poem " The Old Sergeant." He wrote also a 
poem on the fight at Fort Henry, entitled the " Rhyme of 
the Master's Mate." 

2. Women Poets. — Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the 
magnificent " Battle-Hymn of the Republic," was born in 
New York City, May 27, 1819, and in 1843 married Dr. 
Samuel G. Howe, the philanthropist and educator of 
Laura Bridgman. 

During the war the rude but thrilling threnody of 
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave" 
was heard in every Northern camp, and to its stirring 
melody the regiments kept time as they marched. Mrs. 
Howe in her majestic " Battle-Hymn " furnished the cho- 
rus with noble words. 

Mrs. Howe's other works are Passion Flowers (1854), 
Words for the Hour (1857), A Trip to Cuba (1860), Later 
Lyrics (1866), Life of Margaret Fuller (1883). 

Among the women who, like Mrs. Howe, have added 
grace and value to our contemporary literature, are Alice 



THE POETS. 147 

and Phoebe Gary, Margaret Preston, Lucy Larcom, Helen 
Hunt, Celia Thaxter, and Emma Lazarus. 

Alice and Phcebe Gary, the two sister-poets described 
by Whittier in " The Singer," were born in Ohio — Alice in 
1820, Phoebe in 1824. In 1852 the sisters removed to New 
York and devoted themselves to literary work. Their house 
in New York attracted the best minds of America. Alice 
wrote Clovernook Papers, an account of her home-life in 
Ohio (1851), Pictures of Country Life (1859), Lyrics and 
Hymns (1866), Snow-herries (1869). The Poems of Alice and 
Phoebe Cary were published in 1850. Both sisters died in 
1871. 

Margaret Preston was born in Philadelphia in 1825, 
and now lives in Lexington, Virginia. Her principal book 
of poems was Beechen Brook (1866). Two of her poems, 
" Stonewall Jackson's Grave " and " Slain in Battle," have 
obtained considerable popularity. 

Lucy Larcom (1826 ) wrote several patriotic poems 

during the Givil War. She was encouraged in her literary 
eflForts by John G. Whittier. Her books are Ships in the 
Mist (1859), Poeras (1868), Wild Roses of Cape Ann (1880). 

Gelia Thaxter (1836 ) has lived the greater part 

of her life at Appledore, upon the Isles of Shoals. She 
has caught the physiology of the sea, and expressed it 
in literature better and more thoroughly than any other 
American poet. Her books are Among the Isles of Shoals 
(1873), Driftweed (1878), Cruise of the Mystery (1886). " The 
Sandpiper," " The Wreck of the Pocahontas," "The Watch 
of Boon Island," and " The Spaniards' Graves " are among 
the best of her shorter poems. 

Emma Lazarus (1849-87) published several excellent 
poems, translations, and essays. Her principal book was 
entitled Songs of a Semite. 

Helen Fiske Hunt Jackson was one of the foremost 
female writers of America. She wrote under the signature 
of " H. H." in both prose and poetry. She was born in 



148 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Amherst, Mass., October 18, 1831, and died in San Fran- 
cisco August 12, 1885. She was a daughter of Professor 
Nathan Fiske of Amherst, and she married, in 1852, Cap- 
tain Edward B. Hunt of the United States army, who in 
1863 was killed while experimenting with a submarine 
battery of his own invention. Her second husband was 
William S. Jackson, a banker of Colorado Springs. 

She pubhshed Verses by IL H. (1870), Bits of Travel 
(1872), Bits of Travel at Home, in Colorado, California, and 
New England (1878), Bits of Talk about Home Matters 
(1876), The Hunter Cats of Connorloa (1884), Zeph (1885), 
Between -Whiles (1887). 

She wrote earnestly in defence of the Indians. Two of 
her books, A Century of Dishonor (1881) and Ramona (1884), 
are full of indignation at the unrighteous treatment of the 
Indians. 

Her style was fresh, vigorous, and often brilliant; her 
poetry contemplative, subtle, and original. No other pro- 
ductions of the mind of woman in America have been 
marked by such high beauty and impetuous feeling. 

3. The Western Poets. — California was purchased by 
the United States in 1848, two years after the annexa- 
tion of Texas. The report of the discovery of gold 
caused a great rush to the Pacific coast. Cities sprang 
up as in a night. A miscellaneous and turbulent popu- 
lation swarmed in San Francisco and " prospected " upon 
streams and mountains. " The Argonauts of '49 " lived a 
desperate life of crime and toil. The lawless, reckless life 
of the gold-hunters — millionaires to-day and beggars to- 
morrow — was novel, picturesque, and dramatic. It fur- 
nished great possibilities to a poet or novelist. It was 
"an era replete with a certain heroic Greek poetry." 

In a few years a literature arose which aimed to ex- 
press and to interpret the rude, romantic society of the 
gold-fields. Miners, gamblers, stage-drivers, Indians, Mex- 
icans, cow-boys, Chinese coolies, longshoremen, figured in 



THE POETS, 149 

the rough and vigorous sketches of the new writers. Not 
only were the characters new, but the scenery was unusual 
in literature. The groves of big trees, the stupendous 
Sierras, the vast canons, the alkaline deserts, stimulated 
and fascinated the literary imagination. 

The writers who have made best use in both prose and 
poetry of this lawless civilization are Bret Harte and Joa- 
quin Miller. Both have naturally obtained wide popular- 
ity. The originality of their subjects and the vehemence 
and truthfulness of their style have won them readers and 
admirers in many lands. Foreign critics are disposed to 
catch at such writers as the only really American authors. 
But a sectional literature cannot be a national literature, 
and it is not American to talk slang, wear revolvers, and 
rase out the ten commandments. The representative 
American man of letters cannot be '' one of the roughs," 
though he may seek to depict all phases of life that have 
contributed to our national character and history. 

Francis Bret Harte (1839 ) was born in Albany, 

N. Y., Aug. 25, 1839. He was quite young when his father, 
who was a teacher and a ripe scholar, died, leaving his 
family with but little means. The son received a com- 
mon-school education, and in 1854 went to California, 
where he was successively school-teacher, miner, compos- 
itor, and editor. In 1868 he founded The Overland Monthly, 
a literary journal displaying on its title-page the appro- 
priate vignette of a grizzly bear crossing a railway-track. 
In this magazine appeared his first stories of mining 
life, written for the most part in the audacious slang of 
the camps. The second number contained " The Luck of 
Roaring Camp," the next " The Outcasts of Poker Flat." 
His first noteworthy poem was " The Heathen Chinee," in 
September, 1870. Other remarkable poems are " Dow's 
Flat," ^^John Burns at Gettysburg," "Chiquita," ^'The 
Row upon the Stanislaw." 

Among his books are Condensed Novels (1867), East and 



150 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

West Poems (1871), Mrs. Skaggs's Husband (1872), Tales of 
the Argonauts (1875), Gabriel Conroy (1876), Echoes of the 
Foothills (1879), The Twins of Table Mountain (1879), In the 
Carquinez Woods (1883), Snow-Bound at EagWs (1886), A 
Millionaire of Rough and Ready (1887). 

Joaquin Miller (1841 ), as he has chosen to call 

himself, although his real name is Cincinnatus Hiner 
Miller, was born in the Wabash district of Indiana. 
His life has been full of thrilling incident and desperate 
adventure. He accompanied his parents to Oregon when 
he was thirteen years old, worked on the farm for three 
years, and then became a miner in California. He went 
with Walker into Nicaragua, and lived for a while with 
a tribe of savages. "' He was miner, astrologer, poet, fili- 
buster, Indian sachem, and roaming herdsman." He re- 
turned to Oregon in 1860 and began the study of law. 
The next year he was miners' express-messenger in the 
gold districts of Idaho. He edited in Lane county, Ore- 
gon, a weekly newspaper which was suppressed for disloy- 
alty. From 1866 to 1870 he was county judge in Eastern 
Oregon. At this period his literary career began. He had 
very early begun to compose verses, and had recited them 
at times to the miners with whom he lived. He succeeded 
in producing rude but forcible lines, although he was igno- 
rant of the laws of versification. In 1870 he collected sev- 
eral of his better poems and published them in a volume 
entitled Songs of the Sierras, In the same year he went 
abroad. On his return he lived for some years as a 
journalist in Washington, but in 1887 removed to Cali- 
fornia, where he now lives. 

His poems are Songs of the Sunlands (1873), Songs of the 
Desert (1875), Songs of Italy (1878), Songs of the Mexican 
Seas (1887), and With Walker in Nicaragua. 

Among his prose works are The Danites in the Sierras 
(1881), Shadoivs of Shasta (1881), '^P; or.'The Gold-seekers of 
the Sierras (1884). He has also written a play called The 



THE POETS. 151 

Danites. The assumed name, " Joaquin," under which he 
writes, was the name of a Mexican brigand whom he 
defended. 

Miller has not the dramatic power nor the fine liter- 
ary skill of Bret Harte. He fails to see the native 
generosity and noble qualities which lie hidden beneath 
the vicious lives of outlaws. His chief excellence is 
his gorgeous pictures of the gigantic scenery of the 
Sierras. 

John James Piatt (1835 ), like Edward Eggleston, 

is a native of Indiana, and is the poet of the prairie and 
the farmstead. He stands midway between the Eastern 
and the Western writers, and has a distinctly local and 
original flavor. He is reflective where the Western poets 
are dramatic. His verse is simple and quiet where theirs 
is vehement and passionate. 

His first book was Poems of Two Friends, published in 
conjunction with W. D. Howells (1860). He has also 
written The Nests at Washington (1864), Poems in Sunshine 
and Firelight (1866), Western Windows, his best book (1869), 
Landmarks, and Other Poems (1871), Idyls and Lyrics of the 
Ohio Valley (1884), At the Holy Well (1887). 

His wife, Sarah Morgan Bryan (1836 ), has also 

published a number of poems, which are better known 
than the verses of any female writer of the West. Among 
her books are A Woman'^s Poems (1871), A Voyage to the 
Fortunate Isles (1874), That New World, and Other Poems 
(1876), Poems in Company with Children (1877), An Irish 
Garland (1884), In Primrose Time (1886), and Child's World- 
Ballads (1887). 

4. Bayard Taylor and his Friends. — Between the time 
of the Knickerbockers and the Civil War, literature occu- 
pied but a small place in the history of New York. After 
the Civil War the wealth of the commercial centre attracted 
men of letters and created a literary society. 

The most prominent figure in all departments of lit- 



152 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

erature was Bayard Taylor, a Pennsylvanian who made 
New York his hterary headquarters. Among his friends 
whose names are memorable in our contemporary litera- 
ture were Richard Henry Stoddard, Edmund Clarence 
Stedman, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. In Pennsylvania 
T. Buchanan Read, George Henry Boker, and Charles G. 
Leland were closely associated with Taylor. 

Bayard Taylor (1825-78) was born in Kennett Square? 
Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1825. After a 
few years of study in country schools he was apprenticed 
to a printer in West Chester. He had already begun to 
compose verses, and in 1844, when meditating a trip to 
Europe, published his first book, Ximena, and Other Poems, 
In the same year he started abroad with less than one 
hundred and fifty dollars, and with an order from Horace 
Greeley for letters to the Tribune, He was gone two years, 
in which time he travelled over Europe on foot and sup- 
ported himself entirely by his literary correspondence, for 
which he received five hundred dollars. On his return he 
published Views Afoot; or^ Europe as Seen with Knapsack 
and Staff (1846). Six editions were called for within a 
year, and it is still one of the most delightful books of 
travel in the language. 

A Traveller, — Taylor has had few superiors as a writer 
of books of travel. He was always fresh, easy, and natu- 
ral. His wandering feet pressed the soil of all the conti- 
nents and his observing eyes saw the strange and beautiful 
things of the world from the equator to the frozen North 
and South. His robust constitution, adventurous spirit, 
and buoyant temper admirably equipped him for a trav- 
eller. 

When gold was discovered in California, Taylor was 
sent out by the Tribune to visit the diggings and write 
letters upon the discoveries. His correspondence was 
collected in Eldorado ; or. Adventures in the Path of Empire 
(1850). It is the record of six months' life in the savage, 



THE POETS. 153 

lawless society of the mines, and is a faithful picture of 
the gold-diggings and of California in '49. 

In 1851 he again went abroad as a correspondent, visited 
Egypt and the East, climbed the Himalayas, and spent 
some time in China and Japan. He returned after two 
years, and published, as the results of his travels, A Jour- 
ney to Central Africa (1854), The Lands of the Saracens (1854), 
and A Visit to India, China, and Japan (1855). 

Taylor at this time was much in demand as a lecturer, 
but, the roving disposition being still strong in him, he 
started in 1856 for the north of Europe. He visited Nor- 
way and Lapland, travelled five hundred miles within the 
Arctic Circle, saw the midnight sun, and in 1858 published 
Northern Travel. 

His other books of travel were Travels in Greece and 
Rome (1859), At Home and Abroad (1860), Colorado (1867), 
Byways of Europe (1869), Travels in Arabia (1872), Egypt 
and Iceland (1874). 

A Poet. — But it was not as a traveller that Taylor de- 
sired to be remembered. His steadfast ambition was to 
be a poet. He hated the lecture-platform and shrank 
from the crowds who stared at him as the " great Ameri- 
can traveller." He depended for his living upon his quick 
and ready pen, which multiplied lectures and prose books, 
but he depended for his fame upon the silent hours dedi- 
cated to poetry. His industry was extraordinary. He 
was always doing the work of several men. His mind 
was teeming with new plans. He was always writing — 
" prose by daylight and poetry by night, a new tandem 
which I never drove before, but it goes smoothly and 
.well." 

His first volume of poems was Rhymes of Travel, Ballads, 
and Other Poejns (1848). His second volume, A Book of 
Romances, Lyrics, and Songs (1851), contained some of his 
best poems. Poems of the Orient appeared in 1854. 

His other poems were The Poefs Journal (1862), The 



154 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Picture of St John (1869), The Masque of the Gods (1872), 
Lcurs : a Pastoral of Norway (1873), The Prophet : a Tragedy 
(1874), Home- Pastorals, idyls of Pennsylvania (1875), The 
National Ode, recited on the 4th of July, 1876, and Prince 
Deukalion: a Lyrical Drama, describing the progress of 
humanity (1878). 

A Novelist. — Taylor wrote four novels: Hannah Thur- 
ston (1863), John Godfrey's Fortunes (1864), The Story of 
Kennett (1866), Joseph and his Friend (1870). The second 
described New York scenes, but the first and third were 
entirely Pennsylvanian. The third is much the best as a 
work of art. 

A Translator. — Taylor was deeply read in German lit- 
erature. He made a careful study of Goethe, and made 
the most successful of the many translations oi Faust. It 
alone would be sufficient to preserve his fame. It ranks 
with such masterly versions of great poems as Longfellow's 
Dante and Bryant's Homer. 

His Last Years. — He had married Marie Hansen of 
Gotha in 1857, and a few years later built his spacious 
country home, " Cedarcroft." In 1877 he was appointed 
minister to Berlin. He died there Dec. 19, 1878. 

His literary life occupied but thirty-four years. In that 
time he wrote thirty-seven volumes. He entered almost 
every department of literature, and always displayed high, 
though never the highest, literary ability. His Life has 
been written and his letters edited by Marie Hansen-Tay- 
lor and Horace E. Scudder. 

Richard Henry Stoddard (1825 ), although born 

in New England (in Massachusetts), has made New York 
his home, and has been there a valued and influential 
member of the alert literary society of which Bayard 
Taylor was the most versatile and striking figure. 

He was poor, was educated in the public schools of 
New York, and was employed for some years in an iron- 
foundry. He read eagerly, and soon became acquainted 



THE POETS. 155 

with the best authors and familiar with the styles of Eng- 
lish poetry. In 1849 he printed a small edition of his 
poems in a volume called Footprints. 

His other works are Songs of Summer (1857), Life^ Travels^ 
and Books of Alexander von Humboldt (1860), The King^s Bell 
(1862), Abraham Lincoln : an Horatian Ode (1865), Putnam 
the Brave (1869), The Book of the East (1869). 

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833 ) is also a New 

Englander, having been born in Hartford, Conn. He stud- 
ied at Yale College. About 1856 he removed to New York, 
where he became known as a frequent contributor to mag- 
azines. He is at present a stockbroker in that city. 

Mr. Stedman has written many poems of great beauty. 
Among the most popular of them are ^' The Diamond 
Wedding," " How Old Brown took Harper's Ferry," and 
"Alice of Monmouth: an Idyl of the Great War." 

His books are Poems, Lyric and Idyllic (1860), Rip Van 
Winkle and his Wonderful Nap (1870), Hawthorne and Other 
Poems (1877), Lyrics and Idyls (1879). He has also written 
two excellent volumes of criticism : Victorian Poets (1875) 
and Poets of America (1886). 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836 ) was born in Ports- 
mouth, New Hampshire, but entered the counting-room of 
his uncle, a merchant in New York, when he was about 
fifteen years old. He has had a large experience in jour- 
nalism, and since 1881 has been the editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly. He is our foremost writer of " society verses." 
He has not the rich imagination of Stoddard nor the ver- 
satility of Stedman, but he surpasses both in delicate ar- 
tistic skill. His jewelled lines, exquisitely pointed, which 
express a single mood or a dainty epigram, place him at 
the head of our lyrical writers. 

Among his poetical works are Pampinea (1861), Cloth of 
Gold (1874), Flower and Thorn (1876), Friar Gerome^s Beau- 
tiful Book (1881). Among his prose works are Out of His 
Head (1862), Story of a Bad Boy (1870), Marjorie Daw and 



156 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Other People (1873), Prudence Palfrey (1874), The Queen of 
Sheba (1877), The Stillwater Tragedy (1880), From Ponkapog 
to Pesth (1883). 

Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-72), like Washington 
AUston, was both poet and painter. He was born in 
Chester county, Pennsylvania. He studied art in sev- 
eral Italian schools. As a painter he belongs with the 
so-called '^ Pre-Raphaelites " of England. His poems are 
patriotic and faithful in their descriptions of American 
scenery. 

He published The New Pastoral (1854), The House by the 
Sea (1856), Sylvia; or, The Lost Shepherd (1857), The Wag- 
oner of the Alleghanies, a poem of Revolutionary times 
(1862), The Good Samaritan (1867). 

His most popular poem was '^ Sheridan's Ride " (1865). 
Next in popularity, perhaps, was " The Closing Scene," a 
description of rural life and landscape. " Drifting " is a 
happy experiment in metrical arrangement. 

George Henry Boker (1823-1890) was a native of Phil- 
adelphia and the son of a wealthy banker. He was grad- 
uated at Princeton College in 1842, and studied law, 
but never engaged in practice. He was appointed, in 
1871, minister to Turkey, and was transferred in 1875 to 
Russia. 

His best writings are his dramas. They are Calaynos, 
a tragedy, Anne Boleyn, Leonor de Guzman, and Francesca 
da Rimini, 

His first volume of poems was The Lesson of Life (1847). 
The patriotic poems written by him during the war were 
collected under the title War Lyrics (1864). 

He also published Konigsmark (1869) and The Book of 
the Dead (1882). 

Some of his minor poems, like "A Ballad of Sir John 
Franklin," " On Board the Cumberland," " Dirge for a 
Soldier," "The Ivory-Carver," etc., have been widely 
popular. 



THE POETS. 157 

Charles Godfrey Leland (1824 ) was born in 

Philadelphia, and was graduated at Princeton. He con- 
tinued his studies in Germany and France, and after 
his return to America became a lawyer. He soon aban- 
doned his profession and gave himself to literature and 
journalism. 

He published The Poetry and Mystery of Dreams in 1855, 
and in the same year Meister KarVs Sketch-Book, The latter 
was full of acute observation, grotesque humor, and curious 
learning. His most popular works were The Hans Breit- 
mann Ballads. They were a series of poems in the dia- 
lect of the Pennsylvania Dutch. " Hans Breitmann Gif 
a Barty," the first ballad of the series, was immensely 
successful and irresistibly droll. 

He has also written several works on the Gypsies, whose 
life and language he has made a special study. 

Mr. Leland now lives in London. 

5. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is the most singular and 
most puzzling figure in American literature. His works 
have provoked both praise and blame. He has become 
popular in this country, and has been extravagantly 
praised abroad. He has been hailed as the representa- 
tive American poet and the true laureate of Democracy. 
On the other hand, he has been severely censured by 
many able critics, and the admiration for him has been 
stigmatized as "Whitmania." He is altogether original 
both in thought and style, and has broken with all the 
traditions of poetry. 

He was born in West Hills, Long Island, May 31, 1819. 
His meagre education was received in the public schools 
of Brooklyn. He became a compositor and afterward a 
carpenter. During the war he served as a volunteer 
army-nurse. His experiences and observations at that 
time took shape in a volume of poems entitled Drum- 
Taps. 

" Leaves of Grass," Whitman's first and most important 



158 AMERICAN LITER ATV RE. 

book, was published in 1855. He continued to add to 
it and to revise it down to the year 1889, in which year 
be issued " an authoritative and personal edition " of his 
complete writings. He claims to have expressed in this 
remarkable first volume of poems the spirit of American 
democracy. He calls it " my definitive carte de visite to the 
coming generations of the New World." Some parts of the 
book have been censured as immoral, but it is, throughout, 
clean and wholesome. The roughness and novelty of the 
book and of the poet were indicated in the defiant rough- 
and-ready picture of" Walt," with hand in pocket, slouched 
hat, and flannel shirt open at the throat. 

His other works are Specimen Days and Collect (prose) 
and November Boughs (prose). He lived humbly during 
his later years in Camden, N. J., where he was vis- 
ited by many curious students from far corners of the 
world. 

Characteristics. — 1. Whitman's egotism is one of his 
most noticeable traits. A long and remarkable poem is 
entitled "Song of Myself": 

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself; 
And what I assume you shall assume, 
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 
I loaf and invite my soul ; 
I lean and loaf at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass." 

2. His democracy is a complementary trait to the first. 
He is impressed with a sense of the absolute equality of 
all men. He is the poet of the average man, " Comrade " 
is the most frequent word in his poems ; '^ ensemble " (i. e. 
the aggregate of men, the " cosmos ") the next frequent. 
He takes his subjects from the crowded streets; he de- 
scribes the ferry-boats, the street-cars, the "policeman 
with his star," the " mangled fireman," the " rough," and 
the "truck-driver" — 



THE POETS. 159 

^'Tlie blab of the pave; tires of carts; sluff of boot-soles; talk of the 
promenaders ; 
The heavy omnibus; the driver with his interrogating thumb; the 
clank of the shod horses on the granite floor; 

The flap of the curtained litter, a sick man inside borne to the hos- 
pital ; 

The meeting of enemies ; the sudden oath, the blows and fall ; 

The excited crowd ; the policeman with his star quickly working his 
passage to the centre of the crowd." 

3. His Slang, — Whitman smears his pages with the com- 
monest slang and the most hideous newspaper English. 
He regards with contempt the scholastic speech and pol- 
ished diction of the great poets. Shakespeare and the 
bards are, for him, the effete singers of an outworn clas- 
sicism and feudalism. He will have no speech but the 
speech of the people. To him nothing is unclean. He 
handles in the frankest manner the most disgusting sub- 
jects, and exalts the body where other writers have ana- 
lyzed the mind and soul. 

His Verse. — A single glance at one of Whitman's poems 
reveals peculiarities of construction that amaze the student 
who has thought of poetry as obedient to metrical rule. 
Classical scansion can make nothing of the bad prose 
which stands for poetry in the larger part of Leaves of 
Grass; for example 

*' I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons, 
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons. 
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person ; 

He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were mass- 
ive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome. 

He was a frequent gunner and fisher; he sailed his boat himself; he 
had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner ; he had fowl- 
ing-pieces presented to him by men that loved him. 



160 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

When he went with his five sons and many grandsons to hunt or fish, 
you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of 
the gang.'^ 

His rugged prose sentences are not poetry, but they do 
contain a sympathetic soul, and their pathos is at times 
unmistakable. 



The Humorists. 

American humor is a distinct and noticeable feature of 
American life and literature. It appeared very early in 
the history of the New England colony, and it underwent 
rapid development during the Revolution. Its chief cha- 
racteristics are individuality, recklessness, irreverence, and 
exaggeration. Our newspapers and comic weeklies are 
filled with humorous stories, too often cheap and vulgar, 
but at times grotesque and irresistible. Our most classical 
writers have been possessed by the merry spirit, have been 
extremely partial to puns, and have often sacrificed serious- 
ness to a joke which would not be repressed. Irving's hu- 
mor has already been described ; Emerson was slyly fond 
of a Yankee jest ; Dr. Holmes eff'ervesces with perpetual 
merriment ; and Lowell is the author of some of the wittiest 
lines of the century. Poe alone among the higher names 
in our literature was really lacking in the appreciation of 
humor. 

Chief among the professional humorists of the country 
are Artemus Ward and Mark Twain. Bret Harte is the 
representative Western humorist ; Seba Smith (1792-1868), 
who wrote under the name of *^ Major Jack Downing," is a 
good illustration of Yankee fun and satire. 

Artemus Ward was the pen-name of Charles Farrar 
Browne (1834-67). He was a compositor, and subse- 
quently newspaper reporter and editor. His comic lec- 
tures were greatly successful in America and in England. 



THE POETS. 161 

His books were Artemus Ward, his Book; Artermis Ward, his 
Travels; and Artemus Ward in London. 

Mark Twain is the pen-name of Samuel L. Clemens 

(1835 ), who has made countless thousands laugh 

and is doubtless the best known humorist in the world. 
He was born in Missouri, and, like Browne, learned the 
printing trade. In 1851 he became a pilot on Mississippi 
River steamboats, and it was there that he got his nom de 
plume^ from hearing the leadsman, sounding a depth of 
two fathoms, call out to "mark twain." 

His first successful publication was The Innocents Abroad 
(1869). His other books are Roughing It (1872), The Gilded 
Age (1873), Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), A Tramp 
Abroad (1880), The Stolen White Elephant (1882), The Prince 
and the Pauper (1882), Life on the Mississippi (1883), and 
Huckleberry Finn (1885). 

Twain sees the world inverted. All its dignities and 
ancient splendors are fair game for mockery. He pokes 
fun at the Sphinx and laughs at Columbus and his muti- 
nous mariners. He drops a tear at the tomb of Adam 
and makes merry with the most solemn products of the 
"old masters." 

Miscellaneous Writers. 

Donald G. Mitchell (1822 ) has written under the 

pen-name of " Ik Marvel." He is the author of Fresh Glean- 
ings, a book of European travels (1847), Reveries of a Bach- 
elor (1850), Dream-Life (1851), My Farm of Edgeivood (1863), 
Wet Days at Edgeivood (1865), Dr. Johns, a novel whose hero 
is a Connecticut minister of the olden time (1866) ; About 
Old Story -Tellers (1877), and Bound Together (1884). He 
now resides near New Haven, Connecticut, upon the farm 
which he has made so famous in his Edgewood books. 

* Nom de plumey or pseudonym, or pen-name, signifies a name assumed 
by an author as his or her signature. 
11 



162 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Mr. Mitchell is a delightful writer for boys. His English 
is delicate and beautiful. His sentiment, which was a little 
cloying in his early books, is charming in his later ones. 
He writes upon the practical and the ideal aspects of 
rural life. His sympathy with children, his love for good 
books, and his appreciation of nature are his chief cha- 
racteristics. 

James Parton (1822-1891) was born in Canterbury, 
England. He was brought to the United States when 
only five years old, and was educated in New York City. 

Parton was an industrious writer, and published a 
large number of books upon various subjects. He con- 
ceived his subjects with great care, and his style is highly 
skilful and interesting. Among his books are Life and 
Times of Aaron Burr, Life of Andrew Jackson, General Butler 
in New Orleans, Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, Fa- 
mous Americans of Recent Times, Smoking and Drinking, A 
Life of Voltaire, Captains of Lndustry. 

Mr. Parton in 1856 married "Fanny Fern" (1811-72), 
the well-known writer for the New York Ledger and sister 
of Nathaniel P. Willis. 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823 ) has been 

active in public life, and was prominent in the anti-slavery 
agitation. He was indicted, in company with Theodore 
Parker and Wendell Phillips, for murder in attempting 
to rescue a fugitive slave from the United States officers. 
During the war he was colonel of the first regiment of 
black troops that was mustered into service. 

Mr. Higginson is a vigorous, virile writer, and handles 
breezy, wholesome subjects in a pure and earnest way. 
He is particularly happy in emphasizing the virtues of 
outdoor life and the necessity of physical culture for the 
American scholar. 

He is the author of Outdoor Papers (1863), Malbone: an 
Oldport Romance (1869), Army Life in a Black Regiment 
(1870), Atlantic Essays (1871), Oldport Days (1873), Young 



THE POETS. 163 

Folks'^ History of the United States (1875), Life of Margaret 
Fuller (1884), etc. 

Charles Dudley Warner (1829 ) was born in 

Plainfield, Massachusetts. He was graduated at Hamil- 
ton College in 1851. In 1853 he joined a surveying party 
on the frontier of Missouri, and in a year's time famil- 
iarized himself with the peculiarities of frontier-life. He 
studied law in Philadelphia, and practised his profession 
in Chicago, but in 1860 removed to Hartford, Connecticut, 
which is now his home. He has edited the Hartford Cou- 
rant, and since 1884 has been one of the editors of Harper'' s 
Magazine. 

He is the author of Being a Boy, an amusing and true 
account of rural life in New England a half century ago 
(1867), My Summer in a Garden (1870), Saunterings (1870), 
Back-Log Studies (1872), Baddeck, and that Sort of Thing 
(1874), My Winter on the Nile (1876), In the Levant (1877), 
Washington Irving (1881), Roundabout Journey (1883), Their 
Pilgrimage (1886), and On Horseback (1888). 

Warner's mellow and refined humor is his chief charac- 
teristic. 

Literary Scholars. — Besides critics like Lowell and 
Stedman, there have been in recent years an increasing 
number of good minds devoting themselves to the care- 
ful study and historical investigation of language and lit- 
erature. America has taken a prominent and important 
place in the study of comparative philology. Men like 

Francis James Child (1825 ) of Harvard, editor of 

the English Ballads, and Moses Coit Tyler (1835 ) 

of Cornell, author of the History of American Literature, 
have produced works which are enduring monuments to 
American scholarship. 

The study of Shakespeare has particularly engaged the 
attention of our scholars. The names of Richard Grant 
White and Horace Howard Furness are among the most 
important in Shakespearian scholarship. 



164 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Richard Grant White was born in New York May 22, 
1821, and died there April 8, 1885. He was educated in 
his native city, studied law, but abandoned the profession 
and engaged in purely literary pursuits. His philological 
works were Words and their Uses (1870) and Every-day Eng- 
lish (1881). His Shakespearian contributions were Shake- 
speare^s Scholar (1854), a fine edition of The Works of Wil- 
liam Shakespeare, annotated, in twelve volumes (1857-65), 
Essay on the Authorship of the Three Parts of Henry the Sixth 
(1859), Memoirs of William Shakespeare (1865), and, after 
he had lost his early enthusiasm for the subject of his 
studies. The Riverside Edition of the Works of Shakespeare 
(1883). His last publication was Studies in Shakespeare, a 
collection of essays contributed to the magazines (1885). 

Mr. White was a critic of great shrewdness and com- 
mon sense. In the explanation of obscure lines he dis- 
played considerable acumen, though he was not possessed 
of the sweep of mind necessary to the successful interpre- 
tation of dramatic art and purpose. 

Horace Howard Furness (1833 ), the greatest liv- 
ing Shakespeare scholar, has been engaged since 1870 upon 
a new variorum edition. The plays thus far published are 
Romeo and Jidiet, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, The 
Merchant of Venice^ As You Like It, The Tempest, and The Win- 
ter''s Tale. Great learning, critical skill, and an exquisite lit- 
erary style are combined and illustrated in this work, which 
is one of the best of American scholastic achievements. 

The Journalists. — Connected with the newspapers and 
magazines of our chief cities are many men of more than 
ordinary literary ability. Three New York journalists are 
worthy of particular mention: they are Parke Godwin, 
William Winter, and Richard Watson Gilder. 

Parke Godwin (1816 ) married the eldest daughter 

of William CuUen Bryant. He was for a time editor of 
Putnam's Monthly, has contributed to many magazines, and 
is now the editor of the New York Nation, the best of Amer- 



THE POETS. 165 

ican weekly journals. He has written Constructive Democ- 
racy; Vala: a Mythological Tale; Out of the Past, a volume 
of serious essays ; and has edited an edition of Bryant's 
works with a Life. 

William Winter (1836 ) has been since 1865 dra- 
matic critic for the New York Tribune. He has written 
several poems of unmistakable beauty, and some prose 
books of pure and noble sentiment. Among his works 
are The Convent, and Other Poems (1854), The Queen's 
Domain, and Other Poems (1858), Life of Edwin Booth 
(1871), Thistledown: a Booh of Lyrics (1878), The Trip to 
England (1879), The Jeffersons (1881), Henry Lrving (1885), 
The Stage-Life of Mary Anderson (1886), English Rambles 
(1884), and Shakespeare'' s England (1886). 

Richard Watson Gilder (1844 ) has been since 

1881 editor-in-chief of The Century. He has published 
four volumes of neat verse : The New Day, The Poet and 
his Master, Lyrics, and The Celestial Passion. 

Mr. Gilder is a brother of William Henry Gilder, the 
Arctic explorer. 

John Burroughs (1837 ) belongs with the out-of- 
door writers, and is the most important representative of 
that group since Thoreau. He bears some resemblance to 
the late Richard Jefferies of England, the author of The 
Gamekeeper at Home, but is not so metaphysical as he. 

Mr. Burroughs has written Walt Whitman as Poet and 
Person (1867), Wake Robin (1871), JVinter Sunshine (1875), 
Birds and Poets (1877), Locusts and Wild Honey (1879), Pe- 
pacton (1881), Fresh Fields (1884), and Signs and Seasons 
(1886). 

His knowledge of nature is intimate and peculiar, and 
his style is crisp, clear, and invigorating. 




R EADINGS. 



COTTON MATHER. 



Literary Style, 



[From " Manuductio ad Ministerium " — i, e. " Directions for a Candi- 
date for the Ministry/'] 

There is a way of writing wherein the author endeavors 
that the reader may have something to the purpose in every 
paragraph. There is not only a vigor sensible in every sen- 
tence, but the paragraph is embellished with profitable ref- 
erences, even to something beyond what is directly spoken. 
Formal and painful quotations are not studied ; yet all that 
could be learned from them is insinuated. The writer pre- 
tends not unto reading, yet he could not have writ as he 
does if he had not read very much in his time ; and his 
composures are not only a cloth of gold, but also stuck 
with as many jewels as the gown of a Russian ambassador. 
This way of writing has been decried by many, and is at 
this day more than ever so, for the same reason that in the 
old story the grapes were decried, " that they were not ripe." 
A lazy, ignorant, conceited set of authors would persuade 
the whole tribe to lay aside that way of writing, for the 
same reason that one would have persuaded his brethren 
to part with the incumbrance of their bushy tails. But, 

167 



168 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

however fashion and humor* may prevail, they must not 
think that the club at their coffee-house is all the world. 
But there will always be those who will in this case be 
governed by indisputable reason, and who will think that 
the real excellency of a book will never lie in saying of 
little ; that the less one has for his money in a book, 'tis 
really the more valuable for it ; and that the less one is 
instructed in a book, and the more of superfluous margin 
and superficial harangue, and the less of substantial mat- 
ter, one has in it, the more 'tis to be accounted of. And if 
a more massy way of writing be never so much disgusted 
at this day, a better gustf will come on. 

Note. — This passage should be compared with the following selec- 
tion from Benjamin Franklin. The former illustrates and defends the 
literary manner of the seventeenth century, the latter that of the eight- 
eenth century. The first is the plea of the most learned of colonial 
Americans ; the other is the story of the origin of the style of the first 
of Kevolutionary writers. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

Passages from his Autobiography. 

HIS cultivation of style. 

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little 
money that came into my hands was ever laid out in 
books. Pleased with the Pilgrim's Progress^ my first col- 
lection was of John Bunyan's works, in separate little 
volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy 
R. Burton's Historical Collections; they were small chap- 
men's books, and cheap, forty or fifty in all. My father's 
little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, 
most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, 

* Caprice. f Taste. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 169 

at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more 
proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was now 
resolved I should not be a clergyman. PlutarcWs Lives 
there was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think 
that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book 
of De Foe's, called an Essay on Projects^ and another of Dr. 
Mather's, called Essays to Do Good, which perhaps gave me 
a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the 
principal future events of my life. 

This bookish inclination at length determined my father 
to make me a printer, though he had already one son 
(James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother James 
returned from England with a press and letters, to set up 
his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that 
of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To 
prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my 
father was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I 
stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed 
the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I 
was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years 
of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages dur- 
ing the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency 
in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. 
I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with 
the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to 
borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon 
and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the great- 
est part of the night when the book was borrowed in the 
evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it 
should be missed or wanted. 

And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Mat- 
thew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and 
who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, 
invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such 
books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, 
and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking it might 



170 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing 
occasional ballads. One was called The Lighthouse Trag- 
edy^ and contained an account of the drowning of Captain 
Worthilake, with his two daughters : the other was a sail- 
or's song on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard) the pirate. 
They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-Street-ballad style ; 
and when they were printed he sent me about the town 
to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being 
recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my van- 
ity ; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my per- 
formances and telling me verse-makers were generally 
beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a 
very bad one ; but as prose- writing has been of great use 
to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means 
of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situa- 
tion, I acquired what little ability I have in that way. . . . 
About this time I met with an odd volume of the Specta- 
tor, It was the third. I had never before seen any of 
them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much 
delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and 
wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took 
some of the papers, and, making short hints of the senti- 
ment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, 
without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers 
again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and 
as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable 
words that should come to hand. Then I compared my 
Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, 
and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of 
words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which 
I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had 
gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for 
words of the same import, but of diff"erent length, to suit 
the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would 
have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for 
variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 171 

mind and make me master of it. Therefore I took some 
of the tales and turned them into verse, and, after a time, 
when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them 
back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of 
hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to 
reduce them into the best order before I began to form the 
full sentences and complete the paper. This was to teach 
me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By compar- 
ing my work afterward with the original, I discovered many 
faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleas- 
ure of fancying that in certain particulars of small import 
I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the 
language ; and this encouraged me to think I might pos- 
sibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of 
which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these 
exercises and for reading was at night, after work or 
before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I 
contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as 
much as I could the common attendance on public wor- 
ship which my father used to exact of me when I was 
under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, 
though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to 
practise it. 



^. • • • 



HIS FIRST ENTRY INTO PHILADELPHIA. 

I HAVE been the more particular in this description of 
my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that 
city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely 
beginnings with the figure I have since made there. I 
was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come 
round by sea. I was dirty from my journey ; my pockets 
were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no 
soul, nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with 
travelling, rowing, and want of rest ; I was very hungry, 
and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar 
and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the 



172 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

people of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it 
on account of my rowing ; but I insisted on their taking 
it. A man being sometimes more generous when he has 
but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps 
through fear of being thought to have but little. 

Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till, near the 
market-house, I met a boy with bread. I had made many 
a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went 
immediately to the baker's he directed me to, in Second 
Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in 
Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. 
Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had 
none such. So, not considering or knowing the difference 
of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his 
bread, I bade him give me three-penny worth of any sort. 
He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was 
surprised at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room 
in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and 
eating the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as 
Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future 
wife's father ; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and 
thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridic- 
ulous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut 
Street, and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the 
way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market 
Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for 
a draught of the river water; and, being filled with one of 
my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that 
came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting 
to go farther. 

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by 
this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were 
all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby 
was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers, near 
the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking 
round a while and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy 



THOMAS JEFFERSON, 173 

through labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell 
fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, 
when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, there- 
fore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadel- 
phia. . . . 

TO WILLIAM STRAHAN, AFTER THE WAR HAD 

BEGUN. 

Mr. Strahan, 

You are a member of Parliament, and one of that major- 
ity which has doomed my country to destruction. You 
have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. 
Look upon your hands ; they are stained with the blood 
of your relations ! You and I were long friends ; you are 
now my enemy, and I am 

Yours, 

B. Franklin. 

Philadelphia, 5 July, 1775. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
An Anecdote of Franklin. 

[From Biographical Sketches of Distinguished MenJ] 

When the Declaration of Independence was under the 
consideration of Congress there were two or three unlucky 
expressions in it which gave offence to some members. 
The words " Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries " excited 
the ire of a gentleman or two of that country. Several 
strictures on the conduct of the British king in negotiating 
our repeated repeals of the law which permitted the im- 
portation of slaves were disapproved by some Southern 
gentlemen, whose reflections were not yet matured to the 
full abhorrence of that traflBc. Although the off*ensive 



174 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

expressions were immediately yielded, these gentlemen 
continued their depredations on other parts of the instru- 
ment. I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived that 
I was not insensible to these mutilations. " I have made 
it a rule," said he, " whenever in my power, to avoid be- 
coming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a 
public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I 
will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer one 
of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having served out 
his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first 
concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper 
inscription. He composed it in these words, ^ John Thomp- 
son, Hatter J makes and sells hats for ready money,' with the 
figure of a hat subjoined ; but he thought he would sub- 
mit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he 
showed it to thought the word ' Hatter ' tautologous, be- 
cause followed by the words 'makes hats,' which showed 
he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed 
that the word ' makes ' might as well be omitted, because 
his customers would not care who made the hats. If good 
and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. 
He struck it out. A third said he thought the words 'for 
ready money ' were useless, as it was not the custom of the 
place to sell on credit ; every one who purchased expected 
to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now 
stood, 'John Thompson sells hats.' 'Sells hats'' f says his 
next friend. ' Why, nobody will expect you to give them 
away ; what then is the use of that word ?' It was stricken 
out, and 'hats'' followed it, the rather as there was one 
painted on the board. So the inscription was reduced 
ultimately to ' John Thompson,' with the figure of a hat 
subjoined." 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 175 



The Mountains of Virginia. 

[From Notes on Virginia.'] 

The passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge is, 
perhaps, one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature. 
You stand on a very high point of land. On your right 
comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot 
of the mountain an hundred miles to seek a vent. On 
your left approaches the Potomac, in quest of a passage 
also. In the moment of their junction they rush together 
against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the 
sea. The first glance of this scene hurries our senses into 
the opinion that this earth has been created in time, that 
the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to 
flow afterward, that in this place, particularly, they have 
been dammed up by the Blue. Ridge of mountains, and 
have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley — that, 
continuing to rise, they have at length broken over at this 
spot, and have torn the mountain down from its summit 
to its base. 

The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the 
Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disrupture and 
avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents of 
Nature, corroborate the impression. But the distant finish- 
ing which Nature has given to the picture is of a very dif- 
ferent character. It is a true contrast to the foreground. 
It is as placid and delightful as that is wild and tremend- 
ous. For the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents 
to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue 
horizon at an infinite distance in the plain country, invit- 
ing you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around 
to pass through the breach and participate of the calm be- 
low. Here the eye ultimately composes itself; and that 
way, too, the road happens actually to lead. You cross 
the Potomac above the junction, pass along its side through 



176 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the base of the mountain for three miles, its terrible preci- 
pices hanging in fragments over you, and within about 
twenty miles reach Fredericktown and the fine country 
round that. This scene is worth a voyage across the At- 
lantic. Yet here, as in the neighborhood of the Natural 
Bridge, are people who have passed their lives within half 
a dozen miles, and have never been to survey these monu- 
ments of a war between rivers and mountains which must 
have shaken the earth itself to its centre. 



WILLIAM WIRT. 

The Blind Preacher* 

[From The Letters of the British Spy.'] 

It was one Sunday, as I travelled through the county 
of Orange, that my eye w^as caught by a cluster of horses 
tied near a ruinous old wooden house in the forest, not far 
from the roadside. Having frequently seen such objects 
before in travelling through these States, I had no diffi- 
culty in understanding that this was a place of religious 
worship. 

Devotion alone should have stopped me to join in the 
duties of the congregation ; but I must confess that curios- 
ity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not the 
least of my motives. On entering I was struck with his 
preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare 
old man ; his head, which was covered with a white linen 
cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all shaking 
under the influence of a palsy, and a few moments ascer- 
tained to me that he was perfectly blind. 

* James Waddel, " the blind preacher/' was born in Ireland in 1739, 
and died in Louisa county, Va., 17th Sept., 1805. He was the teacher 
of James Madison. Wirt's account of him was written in 1803. 



WILLIAM WIRT, 177 

The first emotions which touched my breast were those 
of mingled pity and veneration. But, ah ! . . . how soon 
were all my feelings changed ! The lips of Plato were 
never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees than 
were the lips of this holy man. It was a day of the 
administration of the sacrament, and his subject, of 
course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard 
the subject handled a thousand times : I had thought it 
exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose that in the wild 
woods of America I was to meet with a man whose elo- 
quence would give to this topic a new and more sublime 
pathos than I had ever before witnessed. 

As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mys- 
tic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human, 
solemnity in his air and manner which made my blood 
run cold and my whole frame shiver. 

He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour 
— his trial before Pilate, his ascent up Calvary, his cruci- 
fixion, and his death. I knew the whole history, but never 
until then had I heard the circumstances so selected, so 
arranged, so colored. It was all new, and I seemed to 
have heard it for the first time in my life. His enuncia- 
tion was so deliberate that his voice trembled on every 
syllable, and every heart in the assembly trembled in uni- 
son. His peculiar phrases had that force of description that 
the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting 
before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews — the 
staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the 
buffet : my soul kindled with a flame of indignation and 
my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clenched. 

But when he came to touch on the patience, the for- 
giving meekness, of our Saviour ; when he drew, to the life, 
his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven, his voice 
breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on 
his enemies, " Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do," the voice of the preacher, which had all 

12 



178 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance 
being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he 
raised his handkerchief to his eyes and burst into a loud 
and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. 
The whole house resounded with the mingled groans and 
sobs and shrieks of the congregation. 

It was some time before the tumult had subsided so 
far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the 
usual, but fallacious, standard of my own weakness, I 
began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. 
For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his 
audience down from the height to which he had wound 
them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his 
subject or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the 
fall. But no ; the descent was as beautiful and sublime as 
the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic. 

The first sentence with which he broke the awful silence 
was a quotation from Rousseau : " Socrates died like a phil- 
osopher, but Jesus Christ like a God." 

I despair of giving you any idea of the eff^ect produced 
by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive 
the whole manner of the man as well as the peculiar crisis 
in the discourse. Never before did I completely under- 
stand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on 
delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure 
of the preacher ; his blindness, constantly recalling to your 
recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and associating 
with his performance the melancholy grandeur of their 
geniuses ; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, sol- 
emn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, 
trembling melody ; you are to remember the pitch of pas- 
sion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised; 
and then the few minutes of portentous, death-like silence 
which reigned throughout the house ; the preacher, remov- 
ing his white handkerchief from his aged face, even yet 
wet from the recent torrent of his tears, and slowly stretch- 



JOSEPH STORY. 179 

ing forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sen- 
tence, " Socrates died like a philosopher " — then pausing, 
raising his other hand, pressing them both, clasped to- 
gether, with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his 
" sightless balls " to heaven, and pouring his whole soul 
into his tremulous voice, " but Jesus Christ — like a God !" 
If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the 
effect could scarcely have been more divine. 

Whatever I had been able to conceive of the sublimity 
of Massillon or the force of Bourdaloue had fallen far short 
of the power which I felt from the delivery of this simple 
sentence. The blood which just before had rushed in a 
hurricane upon my brain, and, in the violence and agony 
of my feelings, had held my whole system in suspense, now 
ran back into my heart with a sensation which I cannot 
describe — a kind of shuddering, delicious horror. The 
paroxysms of blended pity and indignation to which I 
had been transported subsided into the deepest self-abase- 
ment, humility, and adoration. I had just been lacerated 
and dissolved by sympathy for our Saviour as a fellow- 
creature, but now, with fear and trembling, I adored htm 
as— "a God." 



JOSEPH STORY. 

The Lawyer. 

[From his Inaugural Discourse at Harvard, 1829.] 

The perfect lawyer, like the perfect orator, must accom- 
plish himself for his duties by familiarity with every study. 
It may be truly said that to him nothing that concerns 
human nature or human art is indifferent or useless. He 
should search the human heart, and explore to their sources 
the passions and appetites and feelings of mankind. He 



180 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

should watch the motions of the dark and malignant pas- 
sions as they silently approach the chambers of the soul in 
its first slumbers. He should catch the first warm rays of 
sympathy and benevolence as they play around the cha- 
racter and are reflected back from its varying lines. He 
should learn to detect the cunning arts of the hypocrite, 
who pours into the credulous and unwary ear his leper- 
ous distilment. 

He should for this purpose make the master-spirits of 
all ages pay contribution to his labors. He should walk 
abroad through Nature, and elevate his thoughts and warm 
his virtues by a contemplation of her beauty and magnif- 
icence and harmony. He should examine well the precepts 
of religion as the only solid basis of civil society, and gather 
from them not only his duty, but his hopes — not merely his 
consolations, but his discipline and his glory. He should 
unlock all the treasures of history for illustration and 
instruction and admonition. He will thus see man as 
he has been, and thereby best know what he is. He 
will thus be taught to distrust theory and cling to practi- 
cal good — to rely more upon experience than reasoning, 
more upon institutions than laws, more upon checks to 
vice than upon motives to virtue. He will become more 
indulgent to human errors ; more scrupulous in means as 
well as ends; more wise, more candid, more forgiving, 
Inore disinterested. If the melancholy infirmities of his 
race shall make him trust men less, he may yet learn to 
love men more. 

Nor should he stop here. He must drink in the lessons 
and spirit of philosophy. I do not mean the philosophy 
described by Milton as 

"A perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns," 

but that philosophy which is conversant with men's busi- 
ness and interests, with the policy and the welfare of na- 



PHILIP FRENEAU. 181 

tions ; that philosophy which dwells not in vain imagina- 
tions and Platonic dreams, but which stoops to life and 
enlarges the boundaries of human happiness ; that philos- 
ophy which sits by us in the closet, cheers us by the fire- 
side, walks with us in the fields and highways, kneels 
with us at the altars, and lights up the enduring flame of 
patriotism. 



PHILIP FRENEAU. 
The Indian Burying-Ground. 

In spite of all the learned have said, 

I still my old opinion keep : 
The posture that we give the dead 

Points out the soul's eternal sleep. 

Not so the ancients of these lands : 
The Indian, when from life released, 

Again is seated with his friends, 
And shares again the joyous feast 

His imaged birds, and painted bowl, 
And venison for a journey drest, 

Bespeak the nature of the soul^ 
Activity that wants no rest. 

His bow for action ready bent, 
And arrows with a head of stone^ 

Can only mean that life is spent, 
And not the old ideas gone. 

Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way, 
No fraud upon the dead commit ; 



182 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Observe the swelling turf, and say, 
They do not lie^ but here they sit 

Here still a lofty rock remains, 

On which the curious eye may trace 

(Now wasted half by wearing rains) 
The fancies of a ruder race. 

Here still an aged elm aspires, 

Beneath whose far-projecting shade 

(And which the shepherd still admires) 
The children of the forest played. 

There oft a restless Indian queen 

(Pale Shebah with her braided hair), 

And many a barbarous form is seen 
To chide the man that lingers there. 

By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews. 
In vestments for the chase arrayed, 

The hunter still the deer pursues^ 
The hunter and the deer a shade. 

And long shall timorous Fancy see 
The painted chief and pointed spear ; 

And reason's self shall bow the knee 
To shadows and delusions here. 

The Wild Honeysuckle. 

Fair flower that dost so comely grow 

Hid in this silent, dull retreat. 
Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow, 
Unseen thy little branches greet ; 

No roving foot shall crush thee here, 
No busy hand provoke a tear. 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 183 

By Nature's self in white arrayed, 

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, 
And planted here the guardian shade 
And sent soft waters murmuring by ; 
Thus quietly thy summer goes, 
Thy days declining to repose. 



Smit with, those charms that must decay, 

I grieve to see your future doom ; 
They died — nor were those flowers more gay 
The flowers that did in Eden bloom ; 
Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power 
Shall leave no vestige of this flower. 



From morning suns and evening dews 

At first thy little being came ; 
If nothing once, you nothing lose. 
For when you die you are the same ; 
The space between is but an hour, 
The frail duration of a flower. 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 

WOUTER VAN TWILLER. 

[From The History of New York.'] 

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) van Twiller was de- 
scended from a long line of Dutch burgomasters who had 
successively dozed away their lives and grown fat upon 
the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam, and who had com- 
ported themselves with such singular wisdom and pro- 
priety that they were never either heard or talked of; 
which, next to being universally applauded, should be the 



184 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are 
two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in 
the w^orld : one by talking faster than they think, and the 
other by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. 
By the first many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a 
man of quick parts ; by the other many a dunderpate, like 
the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered the 
very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual re- 
nlark which I would not, for the universe, have it thought 
I apply to Governor van Twiller. It is true he was a man 
shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke 
except in monosyllables ; but then it was allowed he sel- 
dom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity 
that he was never known to laugh, or even to smile, 
through the whole course of a long and prosperous life. 
Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence that set light- 
minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to throw him 
into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to 
inquire into the matter, and when, after much explana- 
tion, the joke was made as plain as a pike-staff*, he would 
continue to smoke his pipe in silence, and at length, 
knocking out the ashes, w^ould exclaim, " Well, I see 
nothing in all that to laugh about." 

With all his reflective habits he never made up his 
mind on a subject. His adherents accounted for this 
by the astonishing magnitude of his ideas. He con- 
ceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had 
not room in his head to turn it over and examine 
both sides of it. Certain it is that if any matter were 
propounded to him on which ordinary mortals would 
rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague, 
mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some 
time in profound silence, and at length observe that '' he 
had his doubts about the matter f which gained him the 
reputation of a man slow of belief and not easily imposed 
upon. What is more, it gained him a lasting name, for to 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 185 

this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of 
Twiller, which is said to be a corruption of the original 
Twijfler, or, in plain English, Doubter, 

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed 
and proportioned as though it had been moulded by the 
hands of some cunning Dutch statuary as a model of 
majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five feet 
six inches in height and six feet five inches in circum- 
ference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stu- 
pendous dimensions that Dame Nature, with all her sex's 
ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck 
capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined 
the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his back- 
bone, just between the shoulders. His body was oblong, 
and particularly capacious at bottom, which was wisely 
ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of seden- 
tary habits and very averse to the idle labor of walking. 
His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight 
they had to sustain ; so that when erect he had not a little 
the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face, that 
infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, 
unfurrowed by any of those lines and angles which dis- 
figure the human countenance with what is termed expres- 
sion. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, 
like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament, 
and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll 
of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously 
mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenburg 
apple. 

His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took 
his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to 
each ; he smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept 
the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was 
the renowned Wouter van Twiller — a true philosopher, for 
his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled 
below, the cares and perplexities of this world. He had 



186 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

lived in it for years without feeling the least curiosity to 
know whether the sun revolved round it or it round the 
sun ; and he had watched, for at least half a century, the 
smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling without once 
troubling his head with any of those numerous theories 
by which a philosopher would have perplexed his brain 
in accounting for its rising above the surrounding atmo- 
sphere. 

In his council he presided with great state and solem- 
nity. He sat in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the cele- 
brated forest of The Hague, fabricated by an experienced 
timberman of Amsterdam, and curiously carved about the 
arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic eagle's 
claws. Instead of a sceptre he swayed a long Turkish 
pipe, wrought with jasmine and amber, which had been 
presented to a stadtholder of Holland at the conclusion 
of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers. In 
this stately chair would he sit ; and this magnificent pipe 
would he smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant 
motion, and fixing his eye for hours together upon a little 
print of Amsterdam which hung in a black frame against 
the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it has 
even been said that when any deliberation of extraordi- 
nary length and intricacy was on the carpet the renowned 
Wouter would shut his eyes for full two hours at a time, 
that he might not be disturbed by external objects ; and 
at such times the internal commotion of his mind was 
evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his 
admirers declared were merely the noise of. conflict 
made by his contending doubts and opinions. . . . 

The very outset of the career of this excellent magis- 
trate was distinguished by an example of legal acumen 
that gave flattering presage of a wise and equitable admin- 
istration. The morning after he had been installed in 
offiee, and at the moment that he was making his break- 
fast from a prodigious earthen dish filled with milk and 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 187 

Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of 
Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of 
New Amsterdam, who complained bitterly of one Barent 
Bleecker, inasmuch as he refused to come to a settlement 
of accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance in favor 
of the said Wandle. Governor van Twiller, as I have 
already observed, was a man of few words ; he was like- 
wise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings — or being 
disturbed at his breakfast. Having listened attentively 
to the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occa- 
sional grunt as he shovelled a spoonful of Indian pudding 
into his mouth — either as a sign that he relished the dish 
or comprehended the story — he called unto him his con- 
stable, and^ pulling out of his breeches pocket a huge jack- 
knife, despatched it after the defendant as a summons, 
accompanied by his tobacco-box as a warrant. 

This summary process was as effectual in those simple 
days as was the seal ring of the great Haroun Alraschid 
among the true believers. The two parties being con- 
fronted before him, each produced a book of accounts, 
written in a language and character that would have 
puzzled any but a High Dutch commentator or a learned 
decipherer of Egyptian obelisks. The sage Wouter took 
them one after the other, and, having poised them in his 
hands and attentively counted over the number of leaves, 
fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for 
half an hour without saying a word. At length, laying 
his finger beside his nose and shutting his eyes for a 
moment with the air of a man who has just caught a 
subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his 
mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with 
marvellous gravity counted over the leaves and weighed 
the books ; it was found that one was just as thick and as 
heavy as the other — therefore it was the final opinion of 
the court that the accounts were equally balanced ; there- 
fore Wandle should give Barent a receipt, and Barent 



188 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

should give Wandle a receipt, and the constable should 
pay the costs. 

This decision, being straightway made known, diffused 
general joy throughout New Amsterdam, for the people 
immediately perceived that they had a very wise and 
equitable magistrate to rule over them. But its hap- 
piest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place 
throughout the whole of his administration, and the 
office of constable fell into such decay that there was 
not one of those losel scouts known in the province for 
many years. I am the more particular in dwelling on 
this transaction, not only because I deem it one of the 
most sage and righteous judgments on record and well 
worthy the attention of modern magistrates, but because 
it was a miraculous event in the history of the renowned 
Wouter — being the only time he was ever known to come 
to a decision in the whole course of his life. 



The Charms of Rural Life. 

[From The Sketch-Booh'] 

In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing. 
It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and 
beauty ; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, 
operated upon by the purest and most elevating of ex- 
ternal influences. Such a man may be simple and rough, 
but he cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, there- 
fore, finds nothing revolting in an intercourse with the 
lower orders in rural life, as he does when he casually 
mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays aside his 
distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the distinctions 
of rank and to enter into the honest, heartfelt enjoyments 
of common life. Indeed, the very amusements of the 
country bring men more and more together, and the sound 
pf hound and horn blends all feelings into harmony. J 



WASHINGTON IRVINO, 189 

believe this is one great reason why the nobility and gen- 
try are more popular among the inferior orders in Eng- 
land than they are in any other country, and why the 
latter have endured so many excessive pressures and ex- 
tremities without repining more generally at the unequal 
distribution of fortune and privilege. 

To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may 
also be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British 
literature ; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life ; 
those incomparable descriptions of Nature that abound in 
the British poets that have continued down from " The 
Flower and the Leaf" of Chaucer, and have brought into 
our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy 
landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear 
as if they had paid Nature an occasional visit and become 
acquainted with her general charms; but the British 
poets have lived and revelled with her, they have wooed 
her in her most secret haunts, they have watched her 
minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in the 
breeze, a leaf could not rustle to the ground, a diamond 
drop could not patter in the stream, a fragrance could not 
exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its 
crimson tints to the morning, but it has been noticed by 
these impassioned and delicate observers and wrought up 
into some beautiful morality. 

The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural 
occupations has been wonderful on the face of the country. 
A great part of the island is rather level, and would be 
monotonous were it not for the charms of culture ; but it 
is studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and 
palaces and embroidered with parks and gardens. It 
does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but 
rather in little home-scenes of rural repose and sheltered 
quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage 
is a picture ; and as the roads are continually winding and 
the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is de- 



190 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

lighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of 
captivating loveliness. 

The great charm, however, of English scenery is the 
moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in 
the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober, well-estab- 
lished principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom. 
Everything seems to be the growth of ages of regular and 
peaceful existence. The old church of remote architecture, 
with its low, massive portal, its Gothic tower, its windows 
rich with tracery and painted glass in scrupulous preser- 
vation ; its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of 
the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil ; 
its tombstones, recording successive generations of sturdy 
yeomanry whose progeny still plough the same fields and 
kneel at the same altar ; the parsonage, a quaint, irregular 
pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the 
tastes of various ages and occupations ; the stile and foot- 
path leading from the churchyard across pleasant fields 
and along shady hedgerows, according to an immemorial 
right of way ; the neighboring village, with its venerable 
cottages, its public green sheltered by trees under which 
the forefathers of the present race have sported ; the an- 
tique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural 
"domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the 
surrounding scene ; — all these common features of English 
landscape evince a calm and settled security and hereditary 
transmission of home-bred virtues and local attachments 
that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character 
of the nation. 

It is a pleasing sight of a Sunday morning, when the 
bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to 
behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces 
and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the 
green lanes to church ; but it is still more pleasing to see 
them in the evenings gathering about their cottage-doors, 
and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and em- 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 191 

bellishments which their own hands have spread around 
them. 

It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affec- 
tion in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of 
the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments. 



Moonlight on the Alhambra. 

[From The Alhambra.'] 

On taking up my abode in the Alhambra, one end of a 
suite of empty chambers of modern architecture, intended 
for the residence of the governor, was fitted up for my re- 
ception. It was in front of the palace, looking forth upon 
the esplanade. The farther end communicated with a 
cluster of little chambers, partly Moorish, partly modern, 
inhabited by Tia Antonia and her family. These termi- 
nated in a large room which served the good old dame for 
parlor, kitchen, and hall of audience. It had boasted of 
some splendor in the time of the Moors, but a fireplace 
had been built in one corner, the smoke from which had 
discolored the walls, nearly obliterated the ornaments, and 
spread a sombre tint over the whole. From these gloomy 
apartments a narrow blind corridor and a dark winding 
staircase led down an angle of the Tower of Comares; 
groping down which, and opening a small door at the bot- 
tom, you are suddenly dazzled by emerging into the bril- 
liant antechamber of the Hall of Ambassadors, with the 
fountain of the Court of the Alberca sparkling before 
you. 

I was dissatisfied with being lodged in a modern and 
frontier apartment of the palace, and longed to ensconce 
myself in the very heart of the building. 

As I was rambling one day about the Moorish halls I 
found, in a remote gallery, a door which I had not before 
noticed, communicating apparently with an extensive 



192 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

apartment locked up from the public. Here, then, was a 
mystery; here was the haunted wing of the castle. I 
procured the key, however, without difficulty. The door 
opened to a range of vacant chambers of European archi- 
tecture, though built over a Moorish arcade along the 
little garden of Lindaraxa. There were two lofty rooms, 
the ceilings of which were of deep panel-work of cedar, 
richly and skilfully carved with fruits and flowers, inter- 
mingled with grotesque masks or faces, but broken in 
many places. The walls had evidently, in ancient times, 
been hung with damask, but were now naked and scrawled 
over with the insignificant names of aspiring travellers ; 
the windows, which were dismounted and open to wind 
and weather, looked into the garden of Lindaraxa, and 
the orange and citron trees flung their branches into the 
chambers. . . . 

The first night I passed in these quarters was inexpres- 
sibly dreary. I was escorted by the whole family to my 
chamber, and their taking leave of me and retiring along 
the waste antechamber and echoing galleries, reminded 
me of those hobgoblin stories where the hero is left to 
accomplish the adventures of a haunted house. Soon the 
thoughts of the fair Elizabetta and the beauties of her court, 
who had once graced these chambers, now by a perversion 
of fancy added to the gloom. Here was the scene of their 
transient gayety and loveliness ; here were the very traces 
of their elegance and enjoyment ; but what and where 
were they ? Dust and ashes ! tenants of the tomb ! phan- 
toms of the memory ! 

A vague and indescribable awe was creeping over me. 
I would fain have ascribed it to the thoughts of robbers 
awakened by the evening's conversation, but I felt that it 
was something more unusual and absurd. In a word, the 
long-buried impressions of the nursery were reviving and 
asserting their power over my imagination. Everything 
began to be aff'ected by the workings of my mind. The 



WASHINGTON IRVING, 193 

whispering of the wind among the citron trees beneath 
my window had something sinister. I cast my eyes into 
the garden of Lindaraxa : the groves presented a gulf of 
shadows ; the thickets had indistinct and ghostly shapes. 
I was glad to close the window, but my chamber itself be- 
came infected. A bat had found its way in, and flitted 
about my head and athwart my solitary lamp ; the gro- 
tesque faces carved in the cedar ceiling seemed to mope 
and mow at me. . . . 

I have given a picture of my apartment on my first tak- 
ing possession of it ; a few evenings have produced a thor- 
ough change in the scene and in my feelings. The moon, 
which was then invisible, has gradually gained upon the 
nights, and now rolls in full splendor above the flowers, 
pouring a flood of tempered light into every court and 
hall. The garden beneath my window is gently lighted 
up ; the orange and citron trees are tipped with silver ; the 
fountain sparkles in the moonbeams, and even the blush 
of the rose is faintly visible. 

I have sat for hours at my window inhaling the sweet- 
ness of the garden and musing on the chequered features 
of those whose history is dimly shadowed out in the ele- 
gant memorials around. Sometimes I have issued forth 
at midnight, when everything was quiet, and have wan- 
dered over the whole building. Who can do justice to a 
moonlight night in such a climate and in such a place ? 
The temperature of an Andalusian midnight in summer 
is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer 
atmosphere; there is a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of 
spirits, an elasticity of frame, that render mere existence 
enjoyment. The effect of moonlight, too, on the Alham- 
bra has something like enchantment. Every rent and 
chasm of time, every mouldering tint and weather-stain, 
disappears; the marble resumes its original whiteness; 
the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams ; the halls 
are illuminated with a softened radiance, until the whole 

13 



194 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

edifice reminds one of the enchanted palace of an Arabian 
tale. 

At such times I have ascended to the little pavilion 
called the Queen's Toilette to enjoy its varied and exten- 
sive prospect. To the right, the snowy summits of the 
Sierra Nevada would gleam like silver clouds against the 
darker firmament, and all the outlines of the mountain 
would be softened, yet delicately defined. My delight, 
however, would be to lean over the parapet of the tocador 
and gaze down upon Granada, spread out like a map be- 
low me — all buried in deep repose, and its white palaces 
and convents sleeping as it were in the moonshine. 

Sometimes I would hear the faint sounds of castanets 
from some party of dancers lingering in the Alameda ; at 
other times I have heard the dubious tones of a guitar and 
the notes of a single voice rising from some solitary street, 
and have pictured to myself some youthful cavalier sere- 
nading his lady's window — a gallant custom of former days, 
but now sadly on the decline, except in the remote towns 
and villages of Spain. 

Such are the scenes that have detained me for many an 
hour loitering about the courts and balconies of the castle, 
enjoying the mixture of reverie and sensation which steals 
away existence in a southern climate; and it has been 
almost morning before I have retired to my bed and been 
lulled to sleep by the falling waters of the fountain of 
Lindaraxa. 



JAMES FENIMOBE COOPER, 195 

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
At the End of America. 

[From The Sea Lions.'] 

Directly ahead of the schooner rose a sort of pyra- 
mid of broken rocks, which, occupying a small island, 
stood isolated in a measure, and some distance in advance 
of other and equally rugged ranges of mountains, which 
belonged also to islands detached from the mainland thou- 
sands of years before under some violent convulsion of 
Nature. 

It was quite apparent that all on board the schooner re- 
garded that rugged pyramid with lively interest. Most of 
the crew were collected on the forecastle, including the 
officers, and all eyes were fastened on the ragged pyramid 
which they were diagonally approaching. The principal 
spokesman was Stimson, the oldest mariner on board, and 
one who had oftener visited those seas than any other of 
the crew. 

" You know the spot, do you, Stephen ?" demanded 
Roswell Gardiner, with interest. 

" Yes, sir; there's no mistake. That's the Horn. Eleven 
times have I doubled it, and this is the third time that 
I've been so close in as to get a fair sight of it. Once I 
went inside, as I've told you, sir." 

" I have doubled it six times myself," said Gardiner, 
"but never saw it before. Most navigators give it a wide 
berth. 'Tis said to be the stormiest spot on the known 
earth." 

" That's a mistake, you may depend on't, sir. The sow- 
westers blow great guns hereabouts, it is true enough ; and 
when they do, sich a sea comes tumbling in on that rock 
as man never seed anywhere else perhaps; but, on the 
whull, I'd raither be close in here than two hundred miles 



196 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

farther to the southward. With the wind at sow-west and 
heavy, a better start might be made from the southern 
position ; but here I know where I am, and I'd go in and 
anchor, and wait for the gale to blow itself out." 

"Talking of seas, Captain Gar'ner," observed Hazard, 
" don't you think, sir, we begin to feel the swell of the 
Pacific ? Smooth as the surface of the water is, here is a 
ground-swell rolling in that must be twelve or fifteen feet 
in height." 

" There's no doubt of that. We have felt the swell of 
the Pacific these two hours; no man can mistake that 
The Atlantic has no such waves. This is an ocean in 
reality, and this is its stormiest part. The wind fresh- 
ens and hauls, and I'm afraid we are about to be caught 
close in here with a regular sow-west gale." 

"Let it come, sir, let it come," put in Stimson again; 
" if it does, we've only to run in and anchor. I can stand 
pilot, and I promise to carry the schooner where twenty 
sow-westers will do her no harm. What I've seen done 
once I know can be done again. The time will come when 
the Horn will be a reg'lar harbor." . . . 

In order that the reader may better understand those 
incidents of our narrative which we are about to relate, 
it may be well to say a word of the geographical features 
of the region to which he has been transported — in fiction, 
if not in fact. At the southern extremity of the American 
continent is a cluster of islands which are dark, sterile, 
rocky, and most of the year covered with snow. Ever- 
greens relieve the aspect of sterility in places that are a 
little sheltered, and there is a meagre vegetation, in spots, 
that serves to sustain animal life. The first strait which 
separates this cluster of islands from the main is that of 
Magellan, through which vessels occasionally pass in pref- 
erence to going farther south. Then comes Tierra del 
Fuego, which is much the largest of all the islands. To 
the southward of Tierra del Fuego lies a cluster of many 



JAMES FENIMOBE COOPER, 197 

small islands which bear different names, though the group 
farthest south of all, and which it is usual to consider as 
the southern termination of our noble continent, but which 
is not on a continent at all, is known by the appropriate 
appellation of the Hermits. If solitude and desolation 
and want and a contemplation of some of the sublimest 
features of this earth can render a spot fit for a hermitage, 
these islands are very judiciously named. The one that is 
farthest south contains the cape itself, which is marked by 
the ragged pyramid of rock already mentioned, placed 
there by Nature, a never-tiring sentinel of the war of the 
elements. Behind this cluster of the Hermits it was that 
Stimson advised his officer to take refuge against the ap- 
proaching gale, of which the signs were now becoming 
obvious and certain. . . . 

" You are quite sure that this high peak is the Horn, 
Stimson?" Gardiner observed, inquiringly. 

" Sartain of it, sir. There's no mistaking sich a place, 
which, once seen, is never forgotten." 

" It agrees with the charts and our reckoning, and I may 
say it agrees with our eyes also. — Here is the Pacific Ocean 
plain enough, Mr. Hazard." 

" So I think, sir. We are at the end of Ameriky, if it 
has an end anywhere. This heavy long swell is an old 
acquaintance, though I never was in close enough to see 
the land hereabouts before." 

" It is fortunate we have one trusty hand on board who 
can stand pilot. — Stimson, I intend to go in and anchor, 
and I shall trust to you to carry me into a snug berth." 

" I'll do it, Captain Gar'ner, if the weather will permit 
it," returned the seaman, with an unpretending sort of 
confidence that spoke well for his ability. 

Preparations were now commenced in earnest to come 
to. It was time that some steady course should be 
adopted, as the wind was getting up and the schooner 
was rapidly approaching the land. In half an hour the 



198 AMERICAN LITER A TURE, 

Sea-Lion was bending to a little gale, with her canvas 
reduced to close-reefed mainsail and foresail and the bon- 
net off her jib. The sea was fast getting up, though it 
came in long and mountain-like. Roswell dreaded the 
mist. Could he pass through the narrow channels that 
Stimson had described to him with a clear sky, one half 
of his causes of anxiety would be removed. But the 
wind was not a clear one, and he felt that no time was 
to be lost. 

It required great nerve to approach a coast like that of 
Cape Horn in such weather. As the schooner got nearer 
to the real cape, the sight of the seas tumbling in and 
breaking on its ragged rock, and the hollow roaring sound 
they made, actually became terrific. To add to the awe 
inspired in the breast of even the most callous-minded 
man on board, came a doubt whether the schooner could 
weather a certain point of rock, the western extremity of 
the island, after she had got so far into a bight as to ren- 
der wearing questionable if not impossible. Every one 
now looked grave and anxious. Should the schooner go 
ashore in such a place, a single minute would suffice to 
break her to pieces, and not a soul could expect to be 
saved. Roswell was exceedingly anxious, though he 
remained cool. 

"The tides and eddies about these rocks, and in so 
high a latitude, sweep a vessel like chips," he said to 
his chief mate. " We have been set in here by an eddy, 
and a terrible place it is." 

"All depends on our gear's holding on, sir," was the 
answer, " with a little on Providence. Just watch the 
point ahead, Captain Gar'ner: though we are not act- 
ually to leeward of it, see with what a drift we have 
drawn upon it. The manner in which these seas roll 
in from the sow-west is terrific. No craft can go to 
windward against them." 

This remark of Hazard's was very just. The seas that 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 199 

came down upon the cape resembled a rolling prairie in 
their outline. A single wave would extend a quarter of a 
mile from trough to trough, and as it passed beneath the 
schooner, lifting her high in the air, it really seemed as if 
the glancing water would sweep her away in its force. 
But human art had found the means to counteract even 
this imposing display of the power of Nature. The little 
schooner rode over the billows like a duck, and when she 
sank between two of them, it was merely to rise again on a 
new summit and breast the gale gallantly. It was the cur- 
rent that menaced the greatest danger; for that, unseen 
except in its fruits, was clearly setting the little craft to 
leeward and bodily toward the rocks. By this time our 
adventurers were so near to the land that they almost gave 
up hope itself. Cape Hatteras and its much-talked-of dan- 
ger seemed a place of refuge compared to that in which our 
navigators now found themselves. Could the deepest hel- 
lo wings of ten thousand bulls be united in a common roar, 
the noise would not have equalled that of the hollow sound 
which issued from a sea as it went into some cavern of the 
rocks. Then the spray filled the air like driving rain, and 
there were minutes when the cape, though so frightfully 
near, was hid from view by the vapor. 

At this precise moment the Sea-Lion was less than a 
quarter of a mile to windward of the point she was strug- 
gling to weather, and toward which she was driving under 
a treble impetus — that of the wind acting on her sails and 
pressing her ahead at the rate of fully five knots, for the 
craft was kept a rap full ; that of the eddy or current ; and 
that of the rolling waters. No man spoke, for each person 
I felt that the crisis was one in which silence was a sort of 
[homage to the Deity. Some prayed privately, and all gazed 
on the low rocky point that it was indispensable to pass to 
avoid destruction. There was one favorable circumstance : 
the water was known to be deep quite close to the iron- 
bound coast, and it was seldom that any danger existed 



200 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

that it was not visible to the eye. This Roswell knew from 
Stimson's accounts, as well as from those of other mari- 
ners, and he saw that the fact was of the last importance 
to him. Should he be able to weather the point ahead, 
that which terminated at the mouth of the passage that 
led within the Hermits, it was now certain it could be 
done only by going fearfully near the rocks. 

Roswell Gardiner took his station between the knight- 
heads, beckoning to Stimson to come near him. At the 
same time Hazard himself went to the helm. 

" Do you remember this place ?" asked the young mas- 
ter of the old seaman. 

" This is the spot, sir ; and if we can round the rocky 
point ahead I will take you to a safe anchorage. Our drift 
is awful, or we are in an eddy tide here, sir." 

"It is the eddy," answered Roswell, calmly, "though 
our drift is not trifling. This is getting frightfully near to 
that point." 

" Hold on, sir — it's our only chance — hold on, and we 
may rub and go." 

" If we ruh we are lost ; that is certain enough. Should 
we get by this first point, there is another a short distance 
beyond it, which must certainly fetch us up, I fear. See ! 
it opens more as we draw ahead." 

Stimson saw the new danger, and fully appreciated it. 
He did not speak, however; for, to own the truth, he now 
abandoned all hope, and, being a piously-inclined person, 
he was privately addressing himself to God. Every man 
on board was fully aware of the character of this new dan- 
ger, and all seemed to forget that of the nearest point of 
rock, toward which they were now wading with portentous 
speed. That point might be passed — there was a little hope 
there; but as to the point a quarter of a mile beyond, with 
the leeward set of the schooner the most ignorant hand on 
board saw how unlikely it was that they should get by it. 

An imposing silence prevailed in the schooner as she 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 201 

came abreast of the first rock. It was about fifty fathoms 
under the lee bow, and, as to that spot, all depended on the 
distance outward that the dangers thrust themselves. This 
it was impossible to see amid the chaos of waters produced 
by the collision between the waves and the land. Roswell 
fastened his eyes on objects ahead to note the rate of his 
leeward set, and with a seaman's quickness he noted the 
first change. 

" She feels the under-tow, Stephen," he said, in a voice 
so compressed as to seem to come out of the depths of his 
chest, " and is breasted up to windward." 

" What means that sudden lufi", sir ? Mr. Hazard must 
keep a good full or we shall have no chance." 

Gardiner looked aft, and saw that the mate was bearing 
the helm well up, as if he met with much resistance. The 
truth then flashed upon him, and he shouted out, 

" All's well, boys ! God be praised, we have caught the 
ebb-tide under our lee bow !" 

These few words explained the reason of the change. 
Instead of setting to leeward, the schooner was now meet- 
ing a powerful tide of some four or five knots, which 
hawsed her up to windward with irresistible force. As 
if conscious of the danger she was in, the tight little craft 
receded from the rocks as she shot ahead, and rounded the 
second point, which, a minute before, had appeared to be 
placed there purposely to destroy her. It was handsomely 
doubled at the safe distance of a hundred fathoms. Ros- 
well believed he might now beat his schooner off" the land 
far enough to double the cape altogether, could he but 
keep her in that current. It doubtless expended itself, 
however, a short distance in the offing, as its waters dif- 
fused themselves on the breast of the ocean ; and it was 
this diffusion of the element that produced the eddy 
which had proved so nearly fatal. 

In ten minutes after striking the tide the schooner 
opened the passage fairly, and was kept away to enter it. 



202 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Notwithstanding it blew so heavily, the rate of sailing, by 
the land, did not exceed five knots. This was owing to 
the great strength of the tide, which sometimes rises and 
falls thirty feet in high latitudes and narrow waters. 

Stimson now showed he was a man to be relied on. 
Conning the craft intelligently, he took her in behind the 
island on which the cape stands, luffed her up into a tiny 
cove, and made a cast of the lead. There w^ere fifty fath- 
oms of water, with a bottom of mud. With the certainty 
that there was enough of the element to keep him clear of 
the ground at low water, and that his anchors would hold, 
Roswell made a flying moor, and veered out enough cable 
to render his vessel secure. ... No navigator but a sealer 
would have dreamed of carrying his vessel into such a 
place, but it is a part of their calling to poke about in 
channels and passages where no one else has ever been. 
It was in this way that Stimson had learned to know 
where to find his present anchorage. The berth of the 
schooner was perfectly snug and entirely landlocked. 
The tremendous swell that was rolling in on the outside 
caused the waters to rise and fall a little within the pas- 
sage, but there was no strain upon the cables in conse- 
quence. Neither did the rapid tides affect the craft, which 
lay in an eddy that nearly kept her steady. The gale came 
howling over the Hermits, but was so much broken by the 
rocks as to do little more than whistle through the cordage 
and spars aloft. ... 

Taking Stimson with him to carry a glass and armed 
with an old lance as a pike-pole to aid his efforts, Ros- 
well Gardiner now commenced the ascent of the pyramid 
already mentioned. It was rugged and offered a thousand 
obstacles, but none that vigor and resolution could not over- 
come. After a few minutes of violent exertion, and by help- 
ing each other in difficult places, both Roswell and Stimson 
succeeded in placing themselves on the summit of the ele- 
vation, which was an irregular peak. The height was 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 203 

considerable, and gave an extended view of the adjacent 
islands as well as of the gloomy and menacing ocean to 
the southward. The earth probably does not contain a 
more remarkable seutinel than this pyramid on which our 
hero had now taken his station. There it stood, actually 
the Ultima Thule of this vast continent, or, what was much 
the same, so closely united to it as to seem a part of our 
own moiety of the globe, looking out on the broad expanse 
of waters. The eye saw to the right the Pacific, in front 
was the Southern or Antarctic Ocean, and to the left was 
the great Atlantic. For several minutes both Roswell and 
Stephen sat mute, gazing on this grand spectacle. By turn- 
ing their faces north they beheld the highlands of Tierra 
del Fuego, of which many of the highest peaks were cov- 
ered with snow. The pyramid on which they were, how- 
ever, was no longer white with the congealed rain, but 
stood stern and imposing in its native brown. The out- 
lines of all the rocks and the shores of the different islands 
had an appearance of volcanic origin, though the rocks 
themselves told a somewhat different story. The last were 
principally of trap formation. Cape-pigeons, gulls, petrels, 
and albatross were wheeling about in the air, while the 
rollers that still came in on this noble sea-wall were really 
terrific. Distant thunder wants the hollow, bellowing sound 
that these waves made when brought in contact with the 
shores. Roswell fancied that it was like a groan of the 
mighty Pacific at finding its progress suddenly checked. 
The spray continued to fly, and much of the time the air 
below his elevated seat was filled with vapor. 



204 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 

[From The Culprit Fay.] 
III. 

'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell ; 
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well ; 
He has counted them all with click and stroke 
Deep in the heart of the mountain-oak, 
And he has awakened the sentry elve 

Who sleeps wdth him in the haunted tree, 
To bid him ring the hour of twelve 

And call the fays to their revelry ; 
Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell 
(Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell) — 

" Midnight comes, and all is well ; 

Hither, hither, wing your way ; 

'Tis the dawn of the fairy-day." 

IV. 

They come from beds of lichen green, 
They creep from the mullein's velvet screen ; 
Some on the backs of beetles fly 

From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, 
Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, 

And rocked about in the evening breeze ; 
Some from the hum-bird's downy nest — 

They had driven him out by elfin power — 
And, pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast, 

Had slumbered there till the charmed hour; 
Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, 

With glittering ising-stars inlaid ; 
And some had opened the four-o'-clock 

And stol'n within its purple shade ; 



JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE, 205 

And now they throng the moonlight glade 
Above, below, on every side. 

Their little minim forms arrayed 
In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride. 

»A» ^> «^ %^ ^# 

^^ ^* ^f^ ^f% ^^ 

XXV. 

He put his acorn helmet on — 

It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down ; 

The corselet-plate that guarded his breast 

Was once the wild bee's golden vest ; 

His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes, 

Was formed of the wings of butterflies ; 

His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen, 

Studs of gold on a ground of green ; 

And the quivering lance which he brandished bright 

Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight. 

Swift he bestrode his firefly steed ; 

He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue; 
He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed. 

And away like a glance of thought he flew 
To skim the heavens, and follow far 
The fiery trail of the rocket-star. 

XXVI. 

The moth-fly, as he shot in air, 

Crept under the leaf and hid her there ; 

The katydid forgot its lay. 

The prowling gnat fled fast away ; 

The fell mosquito checked his drone 

And folded his wings till the Fay was gone ; 
And the wily beetle dropped his head. 
And fell on the ground as if he were dead ; 
They crouched them close in the darksome shade, 

They quaked all o'er with awe and fear, 



206 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

For they had felt the blue-bent blade, 
And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear. 

Many a time on a summer's night, 

When the sky was clear and the moon was bright, 
They had been roused from the haunted ground 
By the yelp and bay of the fairy-hound ; 
They had heard the tiny bugle horn, 
They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string 

When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn 

And the nettle-shaft through air was borne. 
Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing. 
And now they deemed the courier ouphe 

Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground ; 
And they watched till they saw him mount the roof 

That canopies the world around ; 
Then glad they left their covert lair. 
And freaked about in the midnight air. 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 

On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake of 
New York, September, 1820. 

"The good die fii-st, 
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust 
Burn to the socket." — Wordsworth. 

Green be the turf above thee, 

Friend of my better days, 
None knew thee but to love thee, 

Nor named thee but to praise. 

Tears fell when thou wert dying 
From eyes unused to weep, 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 207 

And long where thou art lying 
Will tears the cold turf steep. 

When hearts whose truth was proven, 

Like thine, are laid in earth, 
There should a wreath be woven 

To tell the world their worth. 

And I, who woke each morrow 

To clasp thy hand in mine, 
Who shared thy joy and sorrow, 

Whose weal and woe were thine, — 

It should be mine to braid it 

Around thy faded brow ; 
But I've in vain essayed it, 

And feel I cannot now. 

While memory bids me weep thee, 

Nor thoughts nor words are free, 
The grief is fixed too deeply 

That mourns a man like thee. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

Thanatopsis. 

To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 



208 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts 

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 

Over thy spirit, and sad images 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 

Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart, — 

Go forth, under the open sky, and list 

To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 

Comes a still voice : Yet a few days, and thee 

The all-beholding sun shall see no more 

In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 

Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, 

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again. 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 

Thine individual being, shalt thou go 

To mix for ever with the elements. 

To be a brother to the insensible rock. 

And, to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 

Shalt thou retire alone — nor couldst thou wish 

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 

With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 

The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good, 

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past. 

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills. 

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales 

Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 

The venerable woods ; rivers that move 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 209 

Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 

Are but the solemn decorations all 

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven. 

Are shining on the sad abodes of death 

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 

The globe are but a handful to the tribes 

That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 

Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands. 

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 

Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there; 

And millions in those solitudes, since first 

The flight of years began, have laid them down 

In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 

So shalt thou rest. And what if thou withdraw 

Unheeded by the living, and no friend 

Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 

Plod on, and each one as before will chase 

His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 

And make their bed with thee. As the long train 

Of ages glide away, the sons of men — 

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 

In the full strength of years ; matron, and maid, 

And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, — 

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side 

By those who, in their turn, shall follow them. 

So live that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, that moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night 

14 



210 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

To A Water-Fowl. 

Whither, 'midst falling dew. 

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 

Of weedy lake or marge of river wide. 

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
On the chafed ocean-side ? 

There is a Power whose care 

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — 
The desert and illimitable air. 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere. 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land. 

Though the dark night is near. 

And soon that toil shall end ; 

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend 

Soon o'er thy sheltered nest. 



WTLLTA3f CULLEN BRYANT. 211 

Thou'rt gone ; the abyss of heaven 

Hath swallowed up thy form, yet on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 

And shall not soon depart : 

He who, from zone to zone, 

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone 

Will lead my steps aright. 

The Prairies. 

These are the gardens of the desert, these 
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, 
For which the speech of England has no name — 
The Prairies. I behold them for the first, 
And my heart swells, while the dilated sight 
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo ! they stretch, 
In airy undulations, far away, 
As if the Ocean, in his gentlest swell, 
Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed 
And motionless for ever. Motionless ? 
No, they are all unchained again. The clouds 
Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath, 
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye ; 
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase 
The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South ! 
Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers, 
And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high, 
Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not — ye have played 
Among the palms of Mexico and vines 
Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks 
That from the fountains of Sonora glide 
Into the calm Pacific — have ye fanned 
A nobler or a lovelier scene than this ? 
Man hath no power in all this glorious work : 



212 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

The Hand that built the firmament hath heaved 
And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their 

slopes 
With herbage, planted them with island groves, 
And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor 
For this magnificent temple of the sky — 
With flowers whose glory and whose multitude 
Rival the constellations ! The great heavens 
Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love — 
A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue, 
Than that which bends above our Eastern hills. 

As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed. 
Among the high rank grass that sweeps his sides, 
The hollow beating of his footstep seems 
A sacrilegious sound. I think of those 
Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here — 
The dead of other days ? And did the dust 
Of these fair solitudes once stir with life 
And burn with passion ? Let the mighty mounds 
That overlook the rivers, or that rise 
In the dim forest crowded with old oaks. 
Answer. A race, that has long passed away, 
Built them : a disciplined and populous race 
Heaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek 
Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms 
Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock 
The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields 
Nourished their harvests, here their herds were fed, 
When haply by their stalls the bison lowed 
And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke. 
All day this desert murmured with their toils. 
Till twilight blushed, and lovers walked, and wooed 
In a forgotten language, and old tunes, 
From instruments of unremembered form. 
Gave the soft winds a voice. The red man came. 



WILL FA M CULLEN BRYANT. 213 

The roaming hunter-tribes, warhke and fierce, 

And the mound-builders vanished from the earth. 

The solitude of centuries untold 

Has settled were they dwelt. The prairie-wolf 

Hunts in their meadows, and his fresh-dug den 

Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the ground 

Where stood their swarming cities. All is gone — 

All save the piles of earth that hold their bones, 

The platforms where they worshipped unknown gods, 

The barriers which they builded from the soil 

To keep the foe at bay, till o'er the walls 

The wild beleaguerers broke, and, one by one, 

The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heaped 

With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood 

Flocked to those vast uncovered sepulchres, 

And sat unscared and silent at their feast. 

Haply some solitary fugitive, 

Lurking in marsh and forest, till the sense 

Of desolation and of fear became 

Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die. 

Man's better nature triumphed then. Kind words 

Welcomed and soothed him ; the rude conquerors 

Seated the captive with their chiefs ; he chose 

A bride among their maidens, and at length 

Seemed to forget — yet ne'er forgot — the wife 

Of his first love and her sweet little ones. 

Butchered, amid their shrieks, with all his race. 

Thus change the forms of being. Thus arise 
Races of living things, glorious in strength, 
And perish as the quickening breath of God 
Fills them or is withdrawn. The red man, too. 
Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long, 
And nearer to the Rocky Mountains sought 
A wilder hunting-ground. The beaver builds 
No longer by these streams, but far away, 



214 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

On waters whose blue surface ne'er gave back 
The white man's face — among Missouri's springs 
And pools whose issues swell the Oregon — 
He rears his little Venice. In these plains 
The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leagues 
Beyond remotest smoke of hunter's camp 
Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shake 
The earth with thundering steps ; yet here I meet 
His ancient footprints stamped beside the pool. 

Still, this great solitude is quick with life. 
Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers 
They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds 
And birds that scarce have learned the fear of man, 
Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground, 
Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer 
Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee, 
A more adventurous colonist than man, 
With whom he came across the Eastern deep, 
Fills the savannas with his murmurings. 
And hides his sweets, as in the golden age. 
Within the hollow oak. I listen long 
To his domestic hum, and think I hear 
The sound of that advancing multitude 
Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground 
Come up the laugh of children, the soft voice 
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn 
Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds 
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain 
Over the dark-brown furrows. All at once 
A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream. 
And I am in the wilderness alone. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 215 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 
The Veterans of Bunker Hill. 

[From the oration at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill 

Monument.] 

Venerable men: You have come down to us from a 
former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened 
out your lives that you might behold this joyous day. 
You are now where you stood fifty years ago this very 
hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to 
shoulder in the strife of your country. Behold how al- 
tered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads, 
the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else how 
changed ! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon ; you 
see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from 
burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead 
and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and sue- 
cessful repulse ; the loud call to repeated assault; the sum- 
moning of all that is manly to repeated resistance ; a thou- 
sand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to 
whatever of terror there may be in war and death, — all 
these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. 
All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers 
and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and chil- 
dren and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking 
with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, 
have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole 
happy population come out to welcome and greet you 
with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a feli- 
city of position appropriately lying at the foot of this 
mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not 
means of annoyance to you, but your country's ow^n 
means of distinction and defence. All is peace, and 
God has granted you this sight of your country's hap- 



216 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

piness ere you slumber in the grave for ever. He has 
allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your 
patriotic toils, and he has allowed us, your sons and coun- 
trymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present 
generation, in the name of your country, in the name of 
liberty, to thank you. 

But, alas ! you are not all here. Time and the sword 
have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, 
Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain 
amidst this broken band. You are gathered to your 
fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful 
remembrance and your own bright example. But let us 
not too much grieve that you have met the common fate 
of men. You lived at least long enough to know that 
your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. 
You lived to see your country's independence established 
and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of 
liberty you saw arise the light of peace, like 

" another mom, 
Risen on mid-noon," 

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. 
But, ah ! him, the first great martyr in this great cause ; 
him, the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart; 
him, the head of our civil councils and the destined leader 
of our military bands ; whom nothing brought hither but 
the unquenchable fire of his own spirit ; him, cut off by 
Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and 
thick gloom ; falling ere he saw the star of his country 
rise ; pouring out his generous blood like water before he 
knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of 
bondage! How shall I struggle with the emotions that 
stifle the utterance of thy name? Our poor work may 
perish, but thine shall endure. This monument may 
moulder away ; the solid ground it rests upon may sink 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 217 

down to a level with the sea ; but thy memory shall not 
fail. Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that 
beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspira- 
tions shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit. 



South Carolina and Massachusetts. 

[From the Reply to Hayne.'] 

I SHALL not acknowledge that the honorable member 
goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished 
talent or distinguished character South Carolina has pro- 
duced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride, 
of her great names. I claim them for my countrymen, 
one and all, the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, 
the Sumpters, the Marions — Americans all, whose fame is 
no more to be hemmed in by State lines than their talents 
and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within 
the same narrow limits. In their day and generation they 
served and honored the country, and the whole country ; 
and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. 
Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears, — 
does he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his patriot- 
ism or sympathy for his sufferings than if his eyes had 
first opened upon the light of Massachusetts instead of 
South Carolina ? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to 
exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in 
my bosom ? No, sir ; increased gratification and delight, 
rather. I thank God that if I am gifted with little of the 
spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have 
yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag 
angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place 
here in the Senate or elsewhere to sneer at public merit 
because it happens to spring up beyond the little limits 
of my own State or neighborhood ; when I refuse, for any 
such cause or for any cause, the homage due to American 



218 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty 
and the country; or if I see an uncommon endowment of 
heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue, in any 
son of the South, and if, moved by local prejudices or gan- 
grened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe 
of a hair from his just character and just fame, — may my 
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ! 

Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; let me indulge 
in refreshing remembrances of the past ; let me remind you 
that, in early times, no States cherished greater harmony, 
both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South 
Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return ! 
Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution, 
hand in hand they stood round the administration of Wash- 
ington and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. 
Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation and distrust, are the 
growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since 
sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which the same great 
arm never scattered. 

Mr. President, I shall enter upon no encomium of Mas- 
sachusetts ; she needs none. There she is ! Behold her, 
and judge for yourselves. There is her history ; the world 
knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is 
Boston and Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill, and 
there they will remain for ever. The bones of her sons, 
falling in the great struggle for Independence, now lie 
mingled with the soil of every State from New England 
to Georgia, and there they will lie for ever. And, sir, 
where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where 
its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives 
in the strength of its manhood and full of its original 
spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party 
strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly 
and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary 
restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by 
which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 219 

end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was 
rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor 
it may still retain over the friends who gather round it ; 
and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the profound- 
est monuments of its own glory and on the very spot of 
its origin. 

The Union. 

[From the peroration of the Reply to Hayne.'] 

I HAVE not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the 
Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess 
behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of pre- 
serving liberty when the bonds that unite us together 
shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself 
to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, 
with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the 
abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe coun- 
sellor in the affairs of this Government whose thoughts 
should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union 
may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the 
condition of the people when it should be broken up and 
destroyed. While the Union lasts we have high, exciting, 
gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our 
children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. 
God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not 
rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be opened 
what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold 
for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him 
shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once- 
glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belliger- 
ent ; on a land rent with civil feuds or drenched, it may 
be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering 
glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, 
now known and honored throughout the earth, still full 
high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their 



220 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted nor a single 
star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable in- 
terrogatory as, " What is all this worth ?" nor those other 
words of delusion and folly, " Liberty first, and Union 
afterward ;" but everywhere, spread all over in characters 
of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, and as they 
float over the sea and over the land and in every wind 
under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to 
every true American heart — Liberty and Union, now and 
for ever, one and inseparable! 



EDWARD EVERETT. 
The Battle of Lexington. 

[From a Fourth-of-July Oration at Dorchester, Mass., 1855.] 

On the 10th of April the all-important blow was struck — 
the blow which severed the fated chain whose every link was 
bolted by an act of Parliament, whose every rivet was closed 
up by an order in council — which bound to the wake of 
Europe the brave bark of our youthful fortune, destined 
henceforth and for ever to ride the waves alone — the blow 
which severed that fated chain was struck. The blow was 
struck which will be felt in its consequences to ourselves 
and the family of nations till the seventh seal is broken 
from the apocalyptic volume of the history of empires. 
The consummation of four centuries was completed. The 
lifelong hopes and heartsick visions' of Columbus — poorly 
fulfilled in the subjugation of the plumed tribes of a few 
tropical islands and the partial survey of the continent, 
cruelly mocked by the fetters placed upon his noble 
limbs by his own menial, and which he carried with 
him into his grave, — were at length more than fulfilled 
when the New World of his discovery put on the sov- 



EDWARD EVERETT. 221 

ereign robes of her separate national existence, and 
joined, for peace and for war, the great Panathenaic 
procession of the nations. The wrongs of genera*tions 
were redressed. The cup of humiliation, drained to the 
dregs by the old Puritan confessors and Nonconformist 
victims of oppression, — loathsome prisons, blasted for- 
tunes, lips forbidden to open in prayer, earth and water 
denied in their pleasant native land, the separations and 
sorrows of exile, the sounding perils of the ocean; the 
scented hedgerows and vocal thickets of the '' old coun- 
tree " exchanged for a pathless wilderness ringing with the 
war-whoop and gleaming with the scalping-knife ; the sec- 
ular insolence of colonial rule checked by no periodical 
recurrence to the public will ; governors appointed on the 
other side of the globe that knew not Joseph ; the patron- 
izing disdain of undelegated power ; the legal contumely 
of foreign law, wanting the first element of obligation, the 
consent of the governed expressed by his authorized rep- 
resentative ; and at length the last unutterable and burn- 
ing affront and shame, a mercenary soldiery encamped 
upon the fair eminences of our cities, ships of war with 
springs on their cables moored in front of our crowded 
quays, artillery planted open-mouthed in our principal 
streets, at the doors of our houses of assembly, their 
morning and evening salvos proclaiming to the rising 
and the setting sun that we are the subjects and they 
the lords, — all these hideous phantoms of the long colo- 
nial night swept off by the first sharp volley on Lex- 
ington Green. 



522 AMEBICAN LITEBATURE. 

RUFUS CHOATE. 

Webster as a Statesman. 

[From the Eulogy on Daniel Webster.'] 

Consider the work he did in that life of forty years — 
the range of subjects investigated and discussed, com- 
posing the whole theory and practice of our organic and 
administrative politics, foreign and domestic; the vast 
body of instructive thought he produced and put in 
possession of the country; how much he achieved in 
Congress, as well as at the bar, to fix the true inter- 
pretation, as well as to impress the transcendent value, 
of the Constitution itself — as much altogether as any jurist 
or statesman since its adoption ; how much to establish in 
the general mind the great doctrine that the Government 
of the United States is a government proper, established 
by the people of the States, not a compact between sov- 
ereign communities — that within its limits it is supreme, 
and that whether it is within its limits or not, in any given 
exertion of itself, is to be determined by the Supreme Court 
of the United States — the ultimate arbiter in the last resort 
— from which there is no appeal but to revolution ; how 
much he did in the course of the discussions which grew 
out of the proposed mission to Panama, and, at a later 
day, out of the removal of the deposits, to place the exec- 
utive department of the Government on its true basis and 
under its true limitations ; to secure to that department all 
its just powers on the one hand, and on the other hand to 
vindicate to the legislative department, and especially to 
the Senate, all that belong to them ; to arrest the tend- 
encies which he thought at one time threatened to sub- 
stitute the government of a single will, of a single person 
of great force of character and boundless popularity, and 
of a numerical majority of the people, told by the head, 



BUFUS CHOATE, 223 

without intermediate institutions of any kind, judicial or 
senatorial, in place of the elaborate system of checks and 
balances by which the Constitution aimed at a govern- 
ment of laws and not of men ; how much, attracting less 
popular attention, but scarcely less important, to complete 
the great work which experience had shown to be left un- 
finished by the Judiciary Act of 1789 by providing for the 
punishment of all crimes against the United States ; how 
much for securing a safe currency and a true financial sys- 
tem, not only by the promulgation of sound opinions, but 
by good specific measures adopted or bad ones defeated ; 
how much to develop the vast material resources of the 
country, and to push forward the planting of the West — 
not troubled by any fear of exhausting old States — by a 
liberal policy of public lands ; by vindicating the consti- 
tutional power of Congress to make or aid in making large 
classes of internal improvements, and by acting on that 
doctrine uniformly from 1813, whenever a road was to be 
built or a rapid suppressed or a canal to be opened or a 
breakwater or a lighthouse set up above or below the flow 
of the tide, if so far beyond the ability of a single State, 
or of so wide utility to commerce and labor, as to rise to 
the rank of a work general in its influences — another tie 
of union because another proof of the beneficence of 
union; how much to protect the vast mechanical and 
manufacturing interests of the country — a value of many 
hundreds of millions, after having been lured into exist- 
ence against his counsels, against his science of political 
economy, by a policy of artificial encouragement — from 
being sacrificed, and the pursuits and plans of large 
regions and communities broken up, and the acquired 
skill of the country squandered by a sudden and capri- 
cious withdrawal of the promise of the Government ; how 
much for the right performance of the most delicate and 
difficult of all tasks, the ordering of the foreign affairs of a 
nation, free, sensitive, self-conscious, recognizing, it is true, 



224 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

public law and a morality of the State, yet aspiring to 
power, eminence, and command, its whole frame filled 
full and all on fire with American feeling, sympathetic 
with liberty everywhere; how much for the right order- 
ing of the foreign affairs of such a State, aiming, in all his 
policy, from his speech on the Greek question in 1823 to 
his letters to M. Hulsemann in 1850, to occupy the high, 
plain, yet dizzy ground which separates influence from 
intervention, to avow and promulgate warm good-will to 
humanity wherever striving to be free, to inquire authen- 
tically into the history of its struggles, to take official and 
avowed pains to ascertain the moment when its success 
may be recognized, consistently, ever, with the great code 
that keeps the peace of the world, abstaining from every- 
thing that shall give any nation a right under the law of 
nations to utter one word of complaint, still less to retal- 
iate by war, — the sympathy, but also the neutrality of 
Washington; how much to compose with honor a con- 
currence of difficulties with the first power in the world, 
which anything less than the highest degree of discretion, 
firmness, ability, and means of commanding respect and 
confidence at home and abroad would inevitably have 
conducted to the last calamity — a disputed boundary- 
line of many hundred miles from the St. Croix to the 
Rocky Mountains, which divided an exasperated and 
impracticable border population, enlisted the pride and 
affected the interests and controlled the politics of par- 
ticular States, as well as pressed on the peace and honor 
of the nation, which the most popular administrations of 
the era of the quietest and best public feelings, the times 
of Monroe and of Jackson, could not adjust; which had 
grown so complicated with other topics of excitement that 
one false step, right or left, would have been a step down 
a precipice — this line settled for ever, the claim of Eng- 
land to search our ships for the suppression of the slave- 
trade silenced for ever, and a new engagement entered into 



RUFUS CHOATE. 225 

by treaty binding the national faith to contribute a spe- 
cific naval force for putting an end to the great crime of 
man — the long practice of England to enter an American 
ship and impress from its crew terminated for ever ; the 
deck henceforth guarded sacredly and completely by the 
flag; how much by profound discernment, by eloquent 
speech, by devoted life, to strengthen the ties of Union 
and breathe the fire and strong spirit of nationality 
through all our numbers; how much, most of all, last 
of all, after the war with Mexico, needless if his coun- 
sels had governed, had ended in so vast an acquisition of 
territory, in presenting to the two great antagonistic sec- 
tions of our country so vast an era to enter on, so imperial 
a prize to contend for, and the accursed fraternal strife had 
begun ; how much, then, when rising to the measure of a 
true and difficult and rare greatness, remembering that he 
had a country to save as well as a local constituency to 
gratify, laying all the wealth, all the hopes, of an illustri- 
ous life on the altar of a hazardous patriotism, he sought 
and won the more exceeding glory which now attends — 
which in the next age shall more conspicuously attend — 
his name who composes an agitated and saves a sinking 
land. Recall this series of conduct and influences, study 
them carefully in their facts and results — the reading of 
years — and you attain to a true appreciation of this aspect 
of his greatness — his public character and life. 

15 



226 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 

Original American Literature. 

[From Remarks on National LiteratureJl 

We next observe — and we think the observation import- 
ant — that the facility with w^hich we receive the literature 
of foreign countries, instead of being a reason for neglect- 
ing our own, is a strong motive for its cultivation. We 
mean not to be paradoxical, but we believe that it would 
be better to admit no books from abroad than to make 
them substitutes for our own intellectual activity. The 
more we receive from other countries, the greater the need 
of an original literature. A people into whose minds the 
thoughts of foreigners are poured perpetually needs an 
energy within itself to resist, to modify, this mighty influ- 
ence, and without it will inevitably sink under the worst 
bondage — will become intellectually tame and enslaved. 
We have certainly no desire to complete our restrictive 
system by adding to it a literary non-intercourse law. 
We rejoice in the increasing intellectual connection be- 
tween this country and the Old World. But sooner 
,^ould we rupture it than see our country sitting pas- 
sively at the feet of foreign teachers. It were better to 
have no literature than form ourselves unresistingly on 
a foreign one. The true sovereigns of a country are those 
who determine its mind, its mode of thinking, its tastes, 
its principles ; and we cannot consent to lodge this sove- 
reignty in the hands of strangers. A country, like an 
individual, has dignity and power only in proportion as 
it is self-formed. There is a great stir to secure to our- 
selves the manufacturing of our own clothing. We say, 
Let others spin and weave for us, but let them not think 
for us. A people whose government and laws are noth- 
ing but the embodying of public opinion should jealously 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 227 

guard this opinion against foreign dictation. We need a 
literature to counteract, and to use wisely, the literature 
which we import. We need an inward power proportion- 
ate to that which is exerted on us as the means of self- 
subsistence. It is particularly true of a people whose 
institutions demand for their support a free and bold 
spirit that they should be able to subject to a manly 
and independent criticism whatever comes from abroad. 
These views seem to us to deserve serious attention. W"e 
are more and more a reading people. Books are already 
among the most powerful influences here. The question 
is, Shall Europe, through these, fashion us after its pleas- 
ure ? Shall America be only an echo of what is thought and 
written under the aristocracies beyond the ocean? 

Another view of the subject is this : A foreign literature 
will always, in a measure, be foreign. It has sprung from 
the soul of another people, which, however like, is still not 
our own soul. Every people has much in its own charac- 
ter and feelings which can only be embodied by its own 
writers, and which, when transfused through literature, 
makes it touching and true, like the voice of our earliest 
friend. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
Nature. 

To go into solitude a man needs to retire as much from 
his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I 
read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man 
would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that 
come from those heavenly worlds will separate between 
him and vulgar things. One might think the atmosphere 
was made transparent with this design, to give man, in 



228 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. 
Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are ! 

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand 
years, how would men believe and adore and preserve 
for many generations the remembrance of the city of 
God which had been shown ! But every night come out 
these preachers of beauty and light the universe with their 
admonishing smile. 

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because, though 
always present, they are always inaccessible ; but all nat- 
ural objects make kindred impression when the mind is 
open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean ap- 
pearance. Neither does the wisest man extort all her 
secrets and lose his curiosity by finding out all her per- 
fection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The 
flowers, the animals, the mountains reflected all the wis- 
dom of his best hour as much as they had delighted the 
simplicity of his childhood. 

When we speak of Nature in this manner, we have a 
distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. We mean 
the integrity of impression made by manifold Nature 
objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of tim- 
ber of the wood-cutter from the tree of the poet. The 
charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubi- 
tably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller 
owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland 
beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There 
is a property in the horizon which no man has but he 
whose eye can integrate all the parts — that is, the poet. 
This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their 
land-deeds give them no title. 

To speak truly, few adult persons can see Nature. Most 
persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very super- 
ficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, 
but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The 
lover of Nature is he whose inward and outward senses 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 229 

are still truly adjusted to each other — who has retained 
the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His 
intercourse with heaven and earth becomes part of his 
daily food. In the presence of Nature a wild delight 
runs through the man in spite of real sorrows. Nature 
says, He is my creature, and, maugre all his impertinent 
griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the sum- 
mer alone, but every hour and season, yields its tribute of 
delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and 
authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless 
noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits 
equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health 
the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare 
common in snow-puddles at twilight under a clouded sky, 
without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special 
good-fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. Al- 
most I fear to think how glad I am. In the woods, too, 
a man casts off his years as the snake his slough, and at 
what period soever of his life is always a child. In the 
woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of 
God a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is 
dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them 
in a thousand years. In the woods we return to reason 
and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life — 
no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes) — which Na- 
ture cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, my head 
bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, all 
mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball. 
I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal 
Being circulate through me ; I am part or particle of God. 
The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign or ac- 
cidental. To be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or 
servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover 
of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness I 
find something more dear and connate than in streets or 
villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the 



230 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beau- 
tiful as his own nature. 

The greatest delight which the fields and woods minis- 
ter is the suggestion of an occult relation between man 
and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. 
They nod to me and I to them. The waving of the boughs 
in the storm is new to me and old. 

It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its 
effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion 
coming over me when I deemed I was thinking justly or 
doing right. 

Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight 
does not reside in Nature, but in man or in a harmony of 
both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great 
temperance. For Nature is not always tricked in holiday 
attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed per- 
fume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs is over- 
spread with melancholy to-day. Nature always wears the 
colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity 
the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then there is 
a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has 
just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as 
it shuts down over less worth in the population. 



Beauty. 

A NOBLER want of man is served by Nature — namely, 
the love of Beauty. 

The ancient Greeks called the world xd^r/xo?, beauty. 
Such is the constitution of all things, or such the plastic 
power of the human eye, that the primary forms, as the 
sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us delight in 
and for themselves — a pleasure arising from outline, color, 
motion, and grouping. This seems partly owing to the 
eye itself. The eye is the best of artists. By the mutual 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 23l 

action of its structure and of the laws of light perspective 
is produced, which integrates every mass of objects, of 
what character soever, into a weltcolofed and shaded 
globe, so that where the particular objecfe are mean and 
unaffecting the landscape which they compose is round 
and symmetrical. And as the eye iS the best composer, so 
light is the first of painters. There is Bb x)bject so foul that 
intense light will not make beautiful. And the stimulus 
it affords to the sense, and a sort of infinitude which it 
hath, like space and time, make all matter gay. Even the 
corpse hath its own beauty. But besides this general 
grace diffused over Nature, almost all the individual forms 
are agreeable to the eye, as is proved by our endless imita- 
tions of some of them, as the acorn, the grape, the pine- 
cone, the wheat-ear, the egg, the wings and forms of most 
birds, the lion's claw, the serpent, the butterfly, sea-shells, 
flames, clouds, buds, leaves, and the forms of many trees, 
as the palm. 

For better consideration we may distribute the aspects 
of beauty in a threefold manner : 

1. First, the simple perception of natural forms is a de- 
light. The influence of the forms and actions in Nature is 
so needful to many that, in its lowest functions, it seems 
to lie on the confines of commodity and beauty. To the 
body and mind which have been cramped by noxious 
work or company. Nature is medicinal and restores their 
tone. The tradesman, the attorney, comes out of the din 
and craft of the street and sees the sky and the woods, and 
is a man again. In their eternal calm he finds himself. 
The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are 
never tired so long as we can see far enough. 

But in other hours Nature satisfies the soul purely by 
its loveliness, and without any mixture of corporeal bene- 
fit. I have seen the spectacle of morning from the hill- 
top over against my house, from daybreak to sunrise, with 
emotions which an angel might share. The long slender 



232 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. 
From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. 
I seem to partake its rapid transformations: the active 
enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire 
with the morning wind. How does Nature deify us with 
a few and cheap elements ! Give health and a day, and I 
will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. 

The dawn is my Assyria ; the sunset and moonrise my 
Paphos and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon 
shall be my England of the senses and the understanding ; 
the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and 
dreams. 

Not less excellent, except for our less susceptibility in 
the afternoon, was the charm last evening of a January 
sunset. 

The western clouds divided and subdivided themselves 
into pink flakes modulated with tints of unspeakable soft- 
ness, and the air had so much life and sweetness that it 
was a pain to come within doors. What was it that 
Nature would say? Was there no meaning in the live 
repose of the valley behind the mill, and which Homer or 
Shakespeare could not re-form for me in words? The 
leafless trees become spires of flame in the sunset, with 
the blue east for their background, and the stars of the 
dead calices of flowers, and every withered stem and 
stubble rimed with frost contribute something to the 
mute music. 

The inhabitants of cities suppose that the country land- 
scape is pleasant only half the year. I please myself with 
observing the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that 
we are as much touched by it as by the genial influences 
of summer. 

To the attentive eye each moment of the year has its 
own beauty, and in the same field it beholds, every hour, 
a picture which was never seen before and which shall 
never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 233 

and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath. 
The state of the crop in the surrounding farms alters the 
expression of the earth from week to week. The succes- 
sion of native plants in the pastures and roadsides, which 
make the silent clock by which time tells the summer 
hour, will make even the divisions of the day sensible to a 
keen observer. 

The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants punctual 
to their time, follow each other, and the year has room for 
all. By water-courses the variety is greater. In July the 
blue pontederia or pickerel-weed blooms in large beds in 
the shallow part of our pleasant river, and swarms with 
yellow butterflies in continual motion. Art cannot rival 
this pomp of purple and gold. Indeed, the river is a per- 
petual gala, and boasts each month a new ornament. 

But this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as 
beauty is the least part. The shows of day — the dewy 
morning, the rainbow mountains, orchards in blossom, 
stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like — 
if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely and mock 
us with their unreality. Go out of the house to see the 
moon, and 'tis mere tinsel ; it will not please as when its 
light shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty 
that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who 
ever could clutch it? Go forth to find it and it is gone; 
'tis only a mirage as you look from the windows of 
diligence. 

2. The presence of a higher — namely, of the spiritual — 
element is essential to its perfection. The high and divine 
beauty which can be loved without effeminacy is that which 
is found in combination with the human will, and never 
separate. Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every 
natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, 
and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. We are 
taught by great actions that the universe is the property of 
every individual in it. Every rational creature has all 



234 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Nature for his dowry and estate. It is his if he will. He 
may divest himself of it ; he may creep into a corner and 
abdicate his kingdom, as most men do, but he is entitled 
to the world by his constitution. In proportion to the 
energy of his thought and will he takes up the world into 
himself. " All those things for which men plough, build, 
or sail, obey virtue," said an ancient historian. " The 
winds and waves," said Gibbon, " are always on the side 
of the ablest navigators." So are the sun and moon and 
all the stars of heaven. When a noble act is done, per- 
chance in a scene of great natural beauty ; when Leonidas 
and his three hundred martyrs consume one day in dying, 
and the sun and moon come each and look at them once 
in the steep defile of Thermopylae ; when Arnold Winck- 
elried in the high Alps, under the shadow of the ava- 
lanche, gathers in his side a sheaf of Austrian spears to 
break the line for his comrades, — are not these heroes 
entitled to add the beauty of the scene to the beauty 
of the deed? When the bark of Columbus nears the 
shore of America, before it the beach lined with savages 
fleeing out of all their huts of cane, the sea behind, and 
the purple mountains of the Indian Archipelago around, 
can we separate the man from the living picture ? Does 
not the New World clothe his form with her palm-groves 
and savannas as fit drapery? Ever does natural beauty 
steal in like air and envelop great actions. When Sir 
Henry Vane was dragged up the Tower Hill sitting on 
a sled to suffer death as the champion of the English 
laws, one of the multitude cried out to him, " You never 
sate on so glorious a seat." Charles IL, to intimidate the 
citizens of London, caused the patriot Lord Russell to be 
drawn in an open coach through the principal streets of 
the city on his way to the scaff'old. '^ But," to use the 
simple narrative of his biographer, " the multitude imag- 
ined they saw liberty and virtue sitting by his side." In 
private places, among sordid objects, an act of heroism 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 235 

seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, the 
sun as its candle. Nature stretcheth out her arms to 
embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal great- 
ness. Willingly does she follow his steps with the rose 
and the violet, and bend her lines of grandeur and grace 
to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his 
thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the 
picture. 

Hymn. 

[Sung at the completion of the Concord Monument, April 19, 1836.] 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood. 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 

We set to-day a votive stone. 
That memory may their deed redeem 

When, like o,ur sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit that made those heroes dare 

To die or leave their children free, 
Bid Time and Nature gently spare 

The shaft we raise to them and thee. 



Rhodora. 

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, 
I found the fresh rhodora in the woods, 



236 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, 
To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 
The purple petals, fallen in the pool, 

Made the black water with their beauty gay ; 
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, 

And court the flower that cheapens his array. 
Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why 
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky. 
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 
Then beauty is its own excuse for being ; 
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose ! 

I never thought to ask, I never knew ; 
But in my simple ignorance suppose 

The selfsame Power that brought me there, brought you. 



MARGARET FULLER. 
The True Criticism. 

[From Papers on Literature and Art.l 

There are two ways of considering poems or the prod- 
ucts of literature in general. We may tolerate only what 
is excellent, and demand that whatever is consigned to 
print for the benefit of the human race should exhibit 
fruits perfect in shape, color, and flavor, enclosing kernels 
of permanent value. Those who demand this will be 
content only with the Iliads and Odysseys of the mind's 
endeavor. They can feed nowhere but at rich men's 
tables ; in the wildest recess of Nature roots and berries 
will not content them. They say, " If you can thus 
satiate your appetite, it is degrading; we, the highly 
refined in taste and the tissue of the mind, can no- 



MARGARET FULLER. 237 

where be appeased unless by golden apples served up 
on silver dishes." 

But, on the other hand, literature may be regarded as 
the great mutual system of interpretation between all 
kinds and classes of men. It is an epistolary corre- 
spondence between brethren of one family subject to 
many and wide separations and anxious to remain in 
spiritual presence one of another. These letters may be 
written by the prisoner in soot and water, illustrated by 
rude sketches in charcoal ; by Nature's nobleman, free to 
use his inheritance, in letters of gold, with the fair margin 
filled with exquisite miniatures : to the true man each will 
have value— ;^rs^, in proportion to the degree of its revela- 
tion as to the life of the human soul ; second^ in propor- 
tion to the perfection of form in which that revelation is 
expressed. 

In like manner are there two modes of criticism — one 
which tries, by the highest standard of literary perfection 
the critic is capable of conceiving, each work which comes 
in his way ; rejecting all that it is possible to reject, and 
reserving for toleration only what is capable of standing 
the severest test. It crushes to earth without mercy all 
the humble buds of phantasy, all the plants that, though 
green and fruitful, are also a prey to insects or have suf- 
fered by drouth. It weeds well the garden, and cannot 
believe that the weed in its native soil may be a pretty, 
graceful plant. 

There is another mode which enters into the natural 
history of everything that breathes and lives, which be- 
lieves no impulse to be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes 
circumstances, motive, and object before it condemns, and 
believes there is a beauty in each natural form if its law 
and purpose be understood. It does not consider a litera- 
ture merely as the garden of the nation, but as the growth 
of the entire region, with all its variety of mountain, forest, 
pasture, and tillage lands. Those who observe in this spirit 



238 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

will often experience, from some humble oflfering to the 
muses, the delight felt by the naturalist in the grasses and 
lichens of some otherwise barren spot. These are the earl- 
iest and humblest efforts of Nature, but to a discerning 
eye they indicate the entire range of her energies. 

These two schools have each their dangers. The first 
tends to hypercriticism and pedantry, to a cold restriction 
on the unstudied action of a large and flowing life. In 
demanding that the stream should always flow transpa- 
rent over golden sands, it tends to repress its careless maj- 
esty, its vigor, and its fertilizing power. 

The other shares the usual perils of the genial and affec- 
tionate : it tends to indiscriminate indulgence and a level- 
ling of the beautiful with what is merely tolerable. For, 
indeed, the vines need judicious pruning if they are to 
bring us the ruby wine. 

In the golden age to which we are ever looking forward 
these two tendencies will be harmonized. The highest 
sense of fulfilled excellence will be found to consist with 
the largest appreciation of every sign of life. The eye of 
man is fitted to range all around, no less than to be lifted 
on high. 



HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 
Wild Nature. 

[From Walden.'] 

Our village-life would stagnate if it were not for the 
unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We 
need the tonic of wildness — to wade sometimes in marshes 
where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the 
booming of the snipe ; to smell the whispering sedge where 
only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest 



HENRY DAVID THOREAU, 239 

and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. 
At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn 
all things, we require that all things be mysterious and 
unexplorable — that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsur- 
veyed, and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We 
can never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed 
by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic fea- 
tures — the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with 
its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and 
the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. 
We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some 
life pasturing freely where we never wander. We are 
cheered when we observe the vulture feeding on the car- 
rion which disgusts and disheartens us, and deriving 
health and strength from the repast. There was a dead 
horse in the hollow by the path to my house, which com- 
pelled me sometimes to go out of my way, especially in 
the night when the air was heavy ; but the assurance it 
gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of 
Nature was my compensation for this. I love to see that 
Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to 
be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that 
tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of 
existence like pulp — tadpoles which herons gobble up, 
and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that 
sometimes it has rained flesh and blood ! With the lia- 
bility to accident we must see how little account is to be 
made of it. The impression made on a wise man is that 
of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous after all, 
nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable 
ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not 
bear to be stereotyped. 

Early in May the oaks, hickories, maples, and other 
trees, just putting out amidst the pine woods around the 
pond, imparted a brightness like sunshine to the land- 
scape, especially in cloudy days, as if the sun were break- 



240 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

ing through mists and shining faintly on the hillsides here 
and there. On the third or fourth of May I saw a loon in 
the pond, and during the first week of the month I heard 
the whippoorwill, the brown thrasher, the veery, the wood- 
pewee, the chewink, and other birds. I heard the wood- 
thrush long before. The phoebe had already come once 
more, and looked in at my door and window to see if my 
house was cavern-like enough for her, sustaining herself 
on humming wings with clenched talons, as if she held by 
the air while she surveyed the premises. The sulphur-like 
pollen of the pitch-pine soon covered the pond and the 
stones and rotten wood along the shore, so that you could 
have collected a barrelful. This is the " sulphur showers " 
we hear of. Even in Calidas' drama of Sacontala we read 
of "rills dyed yellow with the golden dust of the lotus." 
And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one 
rambles into higher and higher grass. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
David Swan. 

[From Twke-Told Tales.] 

We can be but partially acquainted even with the events 
which actually influence our course through life and our 
final destiny. There are innumerable other events — if 
such they may be called — which come close upon us, yet 
pass away without actual results, or even betraying their 
near approach, by the reflection of any light or shadow 
across our minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of 
our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear, exul- 
tation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true 
serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the 
secret history of David Swan. 

We have nothing to do with David until we find him, 
at the age of twenty, on the highroad from his native place 



NATHANIEL HAWTHOENE. 241 

to the city of Boston, where his uncle, a small dealer in 
the grocery line, was to take him behind the counter. Be 
it enough to say that he was a native of New Hampshire, 
born of respectable parents, and had received an ordinary 
school education, with a classic finish by a year at Gil- 
manton Academy. After journeying on foot from sunrise 
till nearly noon of a summer's day, his weariness and the 
increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first 
convenient shade and await the coming up of the stage- 
coach. As if planted on purpose for him, there soon ap- 
peared a little tuft of maples with a delightful recess in 
the midst, and such a fresh, bubbling spring that it seemed 
never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. 
Virgin or not, he kissed it with his thirsty lips, and then 
flung himself along the brink, pillowing his head upon 
some shirts and a pair of pantaloons tied up in a striped 
cotton handkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him ; 
the dust did not yet rise from the road after the heavy rain 
of yesterday ; and his grassy lair suited the young man 
better than a bed of down. The spring murmured drows- 
ily beside him ; the branches waved dreamily across the 
blue sky overhead ; and a deep sleep, perchance hiding 
dreams within its depths, fell upon David Swan. But we 
are to relate events which he did not dream of. 

While he lay sound asleep in the shade other people 
were wide awake, and passed to and fro, afoot, on horse- 
back, and in all sorts of vehicles, along the sunny road by 
his bed-chamber. Some looked neither to the right hand 
nor the left, and knew not that he was there ; some merely 
glanced that way without admitting the slumberer among 
their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly 
he slept; and several, whose hearts were brimming full 
of scorn, ejected their venomous superfluity on David 
Swan. A middle-aged widow, when nobody else was near, 
thrust her head a little way into the recess and vowed that 
the young fellow looked charming in his sleep. A temper- 

16 



242 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

ance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor David into the 
texture of his evening's discourse as an awful instance of 
dead-drunkenness by the roadside. But censure, praise, 
merriment, scorn, and indifference were all one, or rather 
all nothing, to David Swan. 

He had slept only a few moments when a brown car- 
riage, drawn by a handsome pair of horses, bowled easily 
along, and was brought to a standstill nearly in front of 
David's resting-place. A linchpin had fallen out and per- 
mitted one of the wheels to slide off. The damage was 
slight, and occasioned merely a momentarj^ alarm to an 
elderly merchant and his wife who were returning to Bos- 
ton in the carriage. While the coachman and a servant 
were replacing the wheel the lady and gentleman sheltered 
themselves beneath the maple trees, and there espied the 
bubbling fountain, and David Swan asleep beside it. Im- 
pressed with the awe which the humblest sleeper usually 
sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the gout 
would allow, and his spouse took good heed not to rustle 
her silk gown lest David should start up all of a sudden. 

" How soundly he sleeps !" whispered the old gentleman. 
" From what a depth he draws that easy breath ! Such 
sleep as that, brought on without an opiate, would be 
worth more to me than half my income, for it would sup- 
pose health and an untroubled mind." 

" And youth besides," said the lady. " Healthy and 
quiet age does not sleep thus. Our slumber is no more 
like this than our wakefulness." 

The longer they looked the more did this elderly couple 
feel interested in the unknown youth, to whom the way- 
side and a maple shade were as a secret chamber with the 
rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him. 

Perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down upon 
his face, the lady contrived to twist a branch aside so as to 
intercept it ; and, having done this little act of kindness, 
she began to feel like a mother to him. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 243 

"Providence seems to have laid him here," whispered 
she to her husband, " and to have brought us hither to find 
him after our disappointment in our cousin's son. Me- 
thinks I can see a likeness to our departed Henry. Shall 
we wake him?" 

" To what purpose ?" said the merchant, hesitating. 
"We know nothing of the youth's character." 

" That open countenance !" replied his wife, in the same 
hushed voice, yet earnestly, " this innocent sleep !" 

While these whispers were passing the sleeper's heart 
did not throb, nor his breath become agitated, nor his 
features betray the least token of interest; yet Fortune 
was bending over him, just ready to let fall a burden of 
gold. The old merchant had lost his only son, and had no 
heir to his wealth except a distant relative, with whose con- 
duct he was dissatisfied. In such cases people sometimes 
do stranger things than to act the magician and awaken 
a young man to splendor who fell asleep in poverty. 

"Shall we not waken him?" repeated the lady, per- 
suasively. 

" The coach is ready, sir," said the servant, behind. 

The old couple started, reddened, and hurried away, 
mutually wondering that they should ever have dreamed 
of doing anything so very ridiculous. The merchant threw 
himself back in the carriage, and occupied his mind with 
the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of 
business. Meanwhile, David Swan enjoyed his nap. 

The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two 
when a pretty young girl came along with a tripping pace, 
which showed precisely how her little heart was dancing 
in her bosom. Perhaps it was this merry kind of motion 
that caused — is there any harm in saying it? — her garter 
to slip its knot. Conscious that the silken girth — if silk it 
were — was relaxing its hold, she turned aside into the 
shelter of the maple trees, and there found a young man 
asleep by the spring. Blushing as red as any rose that 



244 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

she should have intruded into a gentleman's bed-chamber, 
and for such a purpose too, she was about to make her 
escape on tiptoe. But there was peril near the sleeper. A 
monster of a bee had been wandering overhead — buzz, 
buzz, buzz — now among the leaves, now flashing through 
the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till 
finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David 
Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. As free- 
hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder 
with her handkerchief, brushed him soundly, and drove 
him from beneath the maple shade. How sweet a picture ! 
This good deed accomplished, with quickened breath and a 
deeper blush she stole a glance at the youthful stranger, 
for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air. 

" He is handsome !" thought she, and blushed redder yet. 

How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong 
within him that, shattered by its very strength, it should 
part asunder and allow him to perceive the girl among 
its phantoms? Why, at least, did no smile of welcome 
brighten upon his face? She was come, the maid whose 
soul, according to the old and beautiful idea, had been 
severed from his own, and whom, in all his vague but 
passionate desires, he yearned to meet. Her only could he 
love with a perfect love ; him only could she receive into 
the depths of her heart; and now her image was faintly 
blushing in the fountain by his side : should it pass away 
its happy lustre would never gleam upon his life again. 

" How sound he sleeps !" murmured the girl. 

She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly 
as when she came. 

Now this girl's father was a thriving country merchant 
in the neighborhood, and happened at that identical time 
to be looking out for just such a young man as David 
Swan. Had David formed a wayside acquaintance with 
the daughter, he would have become the father's clerk, 
and all else in natural succession. So here, again, had 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 245 

good fortune — the best of fortunes — stolen so near that her 
garments brushed agamst him ; and he knew nothing of 
the matter. 

The girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned 
aside beneath the maple shade. Both had dark faces, set 
off by cloth caps, which were drawn down aslant over their 
brows. Their dresses were shabby, yet had a certain 
smartness. These were a couple of rascals, who got their 
living by whatever the devil sent them, and now, in the 
interim of other business, had staked the joint profits of 
their next piece of villany on a game of cards which was 
to have been decided here under the trees. But finding 
David asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to 
his fellow, 

" Hist ! Do you see that bundle under his head ?" 

The other villain nodded, winked, and leered. 

" I'll bet you a horn of brandy," said the first, " that the 
chap has either a pocket-book or a snug little hoard of 
small change stowed away amongst his shirts. And if not 
there, we shall find it in his pantaloons pocket." 

" But what if he wakes ?" said the other. 

His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the 
handle of a dirk, and nodded. 

" So be it," muttered the second villain. 

They approached the unconscious David, and while one 
pointed the dagger toward his heart the other began to 
search the bundle beneath his head. Their two faces, 
grim, wrinkled, and ghastly with guilt and fear, bent 
over their victim, looking horrible enough to be mis- 
taken for fiends should he suddenly awake. Nay, had 
the villains glanced aside into the spring, even they 
would hardly have known themselves as reflected there. 
But David Swan had never worn a more tranquil aspect, 
even when asleep on his mother's breast. 

" I must take away the bundle," whispered one. 

" If he stirs I'll strike," muttered the other. 



246 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

But at this moment a dog, scenting along the ground, 
came in beneath the maple trees, and gazed alternately at 
each of these wicked men and then at the quiet sleeper. 
He then lapped out of the fountain. 

" Pshaw !" said one villain. " We can do nothing now. 
The dog's master must be close behind." 

" Let's take a drink and be off," said the other. 

The man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into 
his bosom and drew forth a pocket pistol, but not of that 
kind which kills by a single discharge. It was a flask of 
liquor, with a block-tin tumbler screwed upon the mouth. 
Each drank a comfortable dram, and left the spot with so 
many jests and such laughter at their unaccomplished 
wickedness that they might be said to have gone on their 
way rejoicing. In a few hours they had forgotten the 
whole affair, nor once imagined that the recording angel 
had written down the crime of murder against their souls 
in letters as durable as eternity. As for Davin Swan, he 
still slept quietly, neither conscious of the shadow of death 
when it hung over him nor of the glow of renewed life 
when that shadow was withdrawn. 

He slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. An hour's 
repose had snatched from his elastic frame the weariness 
with which many hours of toil had burdened it. Now he 
stirred ; now moved his lips, without a sound ; now talked, 
in an inward tone, to the noonday spectres of his dream. 
But a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louder 
along the road, until it dashed through the dispersing 
mist of David's slumber; and there was the stage-coach. 
He started up w^ith all his ideas about him. 

" Halloo, driver ! Take a passenger ?" shouted he. 

" Room on top," answered the driver. 

Up mounted David, and bowled away merrily toward 
Boston, without so much as a parting glance at that foun- 
tain of dream-like vicissitude. He knew not that a phan- 
tom of Wealth had thrown a golden hue upon its waters, 



NATHANIEL HAV/THOBNE. 247 

nor that one of Love had sighed softly to their murmur, 
nor that one of Death had threatened to crimson them 
with his blood, — all in the brief hour since he lay down 
to sleep. Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy foot- 
steps of the strange things that almost happen. Does 
it not argue a superintending Providence that, while 
viewless and unexpected events thrust themselves con- 
tinually athwart our path, there should still be regular- 
ity enough in mortal life to render foresight even par- 
tially available? 



The Old Manse. 

[From Mosses from an Old Manse."] 

There was in the rear of the house the most delightful 
little nook of a study that ever offered its snug seclusion 
to a scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; 
for he was then an inhabitant of the Manse, and used to 
watch the Assyrian dawn and the Paphian sunset and 
moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. When I 
first saw the room its walls were blackened with the 
smoke of unnumbered years, and made still blacker by 
the grim prints of Puritan ministers that hung around. 
These worthies looked strangely like bad angels, or, at 
least, like men who had wrestled so continually and so 
sternly with the devil that somewhat of his sooty fierce- 
ness had been imparted to their own visages. They had 
all vanished now: a cheerful coat of paint and golden- 
tinted paper-hangings lighted up the small apartment, while 
the shadow of a willow tree that swept against the over- 
hanging eaves attempered the cheery western sunshine. In 
place of the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely 
head of one of Raphael's Madonnas, and two pleasant 
little pictures of the Lake of Como. The only other 
decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always fresh, 



248 AMERICAN LITERA TURE. 

and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books 
(few and by no means choice, for they were chiefly such 
waifs as chance had thrown in my way) stood in order 
about the room, seldom to be disturbed. 

The study had three windows, set with little old-fash- 
ioned panes of glass, each with a crack across it. The two 
on the western side looked, or rather peeped, between the 
willow-branches down into the orchard, with glimpses of 
the river through the trees. The third, facing northward, 
commanded a broader view of the river at a spot where 
its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of 
history. It was at this window that the clergyman who 
then dwelt in the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a 
long and deadly struggle between two nations ; he saw the 
irregular array of his parishioners on the farther side of 
the river, and the glittering line of the British on the 
hither bank; he awaited, in an agony of suspense, the 
rattle of the musketry. It came, and there needed but a 
gentle wind to sweep the battle-smoke around this quiet 
house. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Proem. 

I LOVE the old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages through, 
The songs of Spenser's golden days, 
Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase. 
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. 

Yet vainly in my quiet hours 
To breathe their marvellous notes I try ; 
I feel them as the leaves and flowers 
In silence feel the dewy showers, 
And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 249 

The rigor of a frozen clime, 
The harshness of an untaught ear, 

The jarring words of one whose rhyme 
Beat often Labor's hurried time 
Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here. 

Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, 
No rounded art the lack supplies ; 

Unskilled the subtle lines to trace. 
Or softer shades of Nature's face, 
I view her common forms with unanointed eyes. 

Nor mine the seer-like power to show 
The secrets of the heart and mind ; 
To drop the plummet-line below 
Our common w^orld of joy and woe, 
A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. 

Yet here at least an earnest sense 
Of human right and weal is shown ; 
A hate of tyranny intense. 
And hearty in its vehemence. 
As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. 

O Freedom ! if to me belong 
Nor mighty Milton's gift divine, 

Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song. 
Still, wdth a love as deep and strong 
As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine ! 

To William Lloyd Garrison. 

Champion of those who groan beneath 

Oppression's iron hand ! 
In view of penury, hate, and death, 

I see thee fearless stand, 



250 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Still bearing up thy lofty brow 
In the steadfast strength of truth, 

In manhood sealing well the vow 
And promise of thy youth. 

Go on ! for thou hast chosen well — 

On, in the strength of God ! 
Long as one human heart shall swell 

Beneath the tyrant's rod. 
Speak in a slumbering nation's ear 

As thou hast ever spoken, 
Until the dead in sin shall hear — 

The fetter's link be broken ! 

I love thee with a brother's love, 

I feel my pulses thrill 
To mark thy spirit soar above 

The cloud of human ill. 
My heart hath leaped to answer thine 

And echo back thy words, 
As leaps the warrior's at the shine 

And flash of kindred swords. 

They tell me thou art rash and vain — 

A searcher after fame — 
That thou art striving but to gain 

A long-enduring name — 
That thou hast nerved the Afric's hand. 

And steel'd the Afric's heart, 
To shake aloft his vengeful brand 

And rend his chain apart. 

Have I not known thee well, and read 

Thy mighty purpose long, 
And watch 'd the trials which have made 

Thy human spirit strong ? 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 251 

And shall the slanderer's demon breath 

Avail with one like me, 
To dim the sunshine of my faith 

And earnest trust in thee ? 

Go on ! the dagger's point may glare 

Amid thy pathway's gloom — 
The fate which sternly threatens there 

Is glorious martyrdom ! 
Then onward with a martyr's zeal, 

Pass on to thy reward — 
The hour when man shall only kneel 

Before his Father, God. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Hymn to the Night. 

[From Voices of the Night'] 

I HEARD the trailing garments of the Night 

Sweep through her marble halls ; 
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light 

From the celestial walls. 

I felt her presence, by its spell of might, 

Stoop o'er me from above — 
The calm, majestic presence of the Night, 

As of the one I love. 

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight. 

The manifold, soft chimes. 
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, 

Like some old poet's rhymes. 



252 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air 

My spirit drank repose ; 
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there — 

From those deep cisterns flows. 

O holy Night ! from thee I learn to bear 

What man has borne before ; 
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, 

And they complain no more. 

Peace ! peace ! Orestes-like, I breathe this prayer ; 

Descend with broad-winged flight, 
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, 

The best-beloved Night! 

The Beleaguered City. 

I HAVE read, in some old, marvellous tale, 
Some legend strange and vague, 

That a midnight host of spectres pale 
Beleaguered the walls of Prague. 

Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, 
With the wan moon overhead. 

There stood, as in an awful dream. 
The army of the dead. 

White as a sea-fog, landward bound, 

- The spectral camp was seen. 
And with a sorrowful, deep sound 
The river flowed between. 

No other voice nor sound was there, 

No drum nor sentry's pace ; 
The mist-like banners clasped the air 

As clouds with clouds embrace. 



HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 253 

But when the old cathedral bell 

Proclaimed the morning prayer, 
The white pavilions rose and fell 

On the alarmed air. 

Down the broad valley fast and far 

The troubled army fled ; 
Up rose the glorious morning star — 

The ghastly host was dead. 

I have read, in the marvellous heart of man, 

That strange and mystic scroll, 
That an army of phantoms vast and wan 

Beleaguer the human soul. 

Encamped beside Life's rushing stream 

In Fancy's misty light. 
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam 

Portentous through the night. 

Upon its midnight battle-ground 

The spectral camp is seen. 
And with a sorrowful, deep sound 

Flows the River of Life between. 

No other voice nor sound is there 

In the army of the grave : 
No other challenge breaks the air. 

But the rushing of Life's wave. 

And when the solemn and deep church-bell 

Entreats the soul to pray, 
The midnight phantoms feel the spell, 

The shadows sweep away. » 



254 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar 
The spectral camp is fled ; 

Faith shineth as a morning star, ^' 
Our ghastly fears are dead. - ' 

The Arsenal at Springfield. 

This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, 
Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms ; 

But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing 
Startles the villages with strange alarms. 

Ah ! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, 
When the Death- Angel touches those swift keys I 

What loud lament and dismal miserere 
Will mingle with their awful symphonies ! 

I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, 
The cries of agony, the endless groan, 

Which, through the ages that have gone before us, 
In long reverberations reach our own. 

On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer, 
Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song. 

And loud, amid the universal clamor, 

O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong. 

I hear the Florentine, who from his palace 
Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din, 

And Aztec priests upon their teocallis 

Beat the wdld war-drums made of serpent's skin ; 

The tumult of each sacked and burning village ; 

The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns ; 
The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage ; 

The wail of famine in beleaguered towns ; 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 255 

The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, 
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade ; 

And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, 
The diapason of the cannonade. 

Is it, man, with such discordant noises, 
With such accursed instruments as these. 

Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, 
And j arrest the celestial harmonies ? 

Were half the power that fills the world with terror. 
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, 

Given to redeem the human mind from error. 
There were no need of arsenals nor forts. 

The warrior's name would be a name abhorred. 

And every nation that should lift again 
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead 

Would wear for evermore the curse cf Cain. 

Down the dark future, through long generations, 
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease ; 

And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, 

I hear once more the voice of Christ say, " Peace !" 

Peace ! and no longer from its brazen portals 
The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies ! 

But, beautiful as songs of the immortals, 
The holy melodies of love arise. 

The Skeleton in Armor. 

" Speak ! speak ! thou fearful guest ! 
Who with thy hollow breast 
Still in rude armor drest 
Comest to daunt me I 



256 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 
But with thy fleshless palms 
Stretched, as if asking alms, 
Why dost thou haunt me ?" 

Then from those cavernous eyes 
Pale flashes seemed to rise. 
As when the Northern skies 

Gleam in December ; 
And like the water's flow 
Under December's snow. 
Came a dull voice of woe 

From the heart's chamber : 

" I was a Viking old ! 
My deeds, though manifold, 
No Skald in song has told, 

No saga taught thee ! 
Take heed, that in thy verse 
Thou dost the tale rehearse. 
Else dread a dead man's curse ; 

For this I sought thee. 

" Far in the Northern land, 
By the wild Baltic's strand, 
I, with my childish hand, 

Tamed the gerfalcon ; 
And with my skates fast bound 
Skimmed the half-frozen sound, 
That the poor whimpering hound 

Trembled to walk on. 

" Oft to his frozen lair 
Tracked I the grisly bear, 
While from my path the hare 
Fled like a shadow ; 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 257 

Oft through the forest dark 
Followed the were-wolf 's bark, 
Until the soaring lark 
Sang from the meadow. 

" But when I older grew, 
Joining a corsair's crew. 
O'er the dark sea I flew 
With the marauders. 
Wild was the life we led ; 
Many the souls that sped, 
Many the hearts that bled, 
By our stern orders. 

" Many a wassail-bout 
Wore the long winter out ; 
Often our midnight shout 

Set the cocks crowing. 
As we the Berserk's tale 
Measured in cups of ale. 
Draining the oaken pail. 

Filled to o'erflowing. 



i( 



Once as I told in glee 
Tales of the stormy sea. 
Soft eyes did gaze on me, 

Burning yet tender ; 
And as the white stars shine 
On the dark Norway pine, 
On that dark heart of mine 

Fell their soft splendor. 



" I wooed the blue-eyed maid. 

Yielding, yet half afraid. 

And in the forest's shade 

Our vows were plighted. 
17 



258 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Under its loosened vest 
Fluttered her little breast, 
Like birds within their nest 
By the hawk frighted. 

" Bright in her father's hall 
Shields gleamed upon the wall, 
Loud sang the minstrels all, 

Chanting his glory ; 
When of old Hildebrand 
I asked his daughter's hand. 
Mute did the minstrels stand 

To hear my story. 

" While the brown ale he quaffed, 
Loud then the champion laughed, 
And as the wind-gusts waft 

The sea-foam brightly. 
So the loud laugh of scorn, 
Out of those lips unshorn, 
From the deep drinking-horn 

Blew the foam lightly. 

^^ She was a prince's child, 
I but a Viking wild. 
And, though she blushed and smiled, 

I was discarded ! 
Should not the dove so white 
Follow the sea-mew's flight ? 
Why did they leave that night 

Her nest unguarded ? 

" Scarce had I put to sea, 
Bearing the maid with me — 
Fairest of all was she 
Among the Norsemen ! — 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 259 

When on the white sea-strand, 
Waving his armed hand, 
Saw we old Hildebrand, 
With twenty horsemen. 

^^ Then launched they to the blast, 
Bent like a reed each mast, 
Yet we were gaining fast. 

When the wind failed us ; 
And with a sudden flaw 
Came 'round the gusty Skaw, 
So that our foe we saw 

Laugh as he hailed us. 

" And as to catch the gale 
Round veered the flapping sail, 
Death ! was the helmsman's hail. 

Death without quarter ! 
Midships with iron keel 
Struck we her ribs of steel ; 
Down her black hulk did reel 

Through the black water. 

" As with his wings aslant 
Sails the fierce cormorant. 
Seeking some rocky haunt 

With his prey laden. 
So toward the open main, 
Beating to sea again, 
Through the wild hurricane 

Bore I the maiden. 

" Three weeks we westward bore. 
And when the storm was o'er. 
Cloud-like, we saw the shore 
Stretching to leeward ; 



260 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

There for my lady's bower 
Built I the lofty tower 
Which, to this very hour, 
Stands looking seaward. 

'* There lived we many years ; 
Time dried the maiden's tears ; 
She had forgot her fears, 

She was a mother ; 
Death closed her mild blue eyes ; 
Under that tower she lies; 
Ne'er shall the sun arise 

On such another. 

** Still grew my bosom then, 
Still as a stagnant fen ; 
Hateful to me were men, 

The sunlight hateful. 
In the vast forest here, 
Clad in my warlike gear. 
Fell I upon my spear ; 
Oh, death was grateful 1 

^' Thus, seamed with many scars, 
Bursting its prison-bars, 
Up to its native stars 
My soul ascended ! 
There from the flowing bowl 
Deep drinks the warrior's soul, 
Skoal ! to the Northland I skoal r 
Thus the tale ended. 



HENRY WADSWOBTH LONGFELLOW. 261 



A National Literature. 

[From KavanaghJ] 

The visitor was shown in. He announced himself as 
Mr. Hathaway. Passing through the village, he could 
not deny himself the pleasure of calling on Mr. Churchill, 
whom he knew by his writings in the periodicals, though 
not personally. He wished, moreover, to secure the co- 
operation of one already so favorably known to the literary 
world in a new magazine he was about to establish in order 
to raise the character of American literature, which, in his 
' opinion, the existing reviews and magazines had entirely 
failed to accomplish. A daily increasing want of some- 
thing better was felt by the public, and the time had come 
for the establishment of such a periodical as he proposed. 
After explaining in a rather florid and exuberant manner 
his plans and prospects, he entered more at large into the 
subject of American literature, which it was his design to 
foster and patronize. 

"I think, Mr. Churchill," said he, "that we want a 
national literature commensurate with our mountains 
and rivers, commensurate with Niagara and the AUegha- 
nies and the Great Lakes." 

" Oh !" 

" We want a national epic that shall correspond to the 
size of the country — that shall be to all other epics what 
Banvard's Panorama of the Mississippi is to all other 
paintings — the largest in the world." 

"Ah!" 

"We want a national drama in which scope enough 
shall be given to our gigantic ideas and to the unparalleled 
activity and progress of our people." 

" Of course." 

*' In a word, we want a national literature altogether 



262 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

shaggy and unshorn, that shall shake the earth like a herd 
of buffaloes thundering over the prairies." 

" Precisely," interrupted Mr. Churchill ; " but — excuse 
me ! — are you not confounding things that have no anal- 
ogy ? ' Great ' has a very different meaning when applied 
to a river and when applied to a literature. ^ Large ' and 
^ shallow ' may perhaps be applied to both. Literature is 
rather an image of the spiritual world than of the physical, 
is it not ? — of the internal rather than the external. Moun- 
tains, lakes, and rivers are, after all, only its scenery and 
decorations, not its substance and essence. A man will 
not necessarily be a great poet because he lives near a 
great mountain; nor, being a poet, will he necessarily 
write better poems than another because he lives nearer 
Niagara." 

" But, Mr. Churchill, you do not certainly mean to deny 
the influence of scenery on the mind ?" 

" No, only to deny that it can create genius. At best it 
can only develop it. Switzerland has produced no extra- 
ordinary poet, nor, as far as I know, have the Andes, or 
the Himalaya Mountains, or the Mountains of the Moon 
in Africa." 

" But, at all events," urged Mr. Hathaway, " let us have 
our literature national. If it is not national it is nothing." 

" On the contrary, it may be a great deal. Nationality 
is a good thing to a certain extent, but universality is bet- 
ter. All that is best in the great poets of all countries is 
not what is national in them, but what is universal. Their 
roots are in their native soil, but their branches wave in 
the unpatriotic air that speaks the same language unto all 
men, and their leaves shine with the illimitable light that 
pervades all lands. Let us throw all the windows open ; 
let us admit the light and air on all sides, that we may 
look toward the four corners of the heavens, and not always 
in the same direction." 

" But you admit nationality to be a good thing ?" 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 263 

"Yes, if not carried too far; still, I confess it rather 
limits one's views of truth. I prefer what is natural. Mere 
nationality is often ridiculous. Every one smiles when he 
hears the Icelandic proverb, ^ Iceland is the best land 
the sun shines upon.' Let us be natural and we shall be 
national enough. Besides, our literature can be strictly 
.national only so far as our character and modes of thought 
differ from those of other nations. Now, as we are very 
like the English — are, in fact, English under a different 
sky — I do not see how our literature can be very different 
from theirs. Westward from hand to hand we pass the 
lighted torch, but it was lighted at the old domestic fire- 
side of England." 

" Then you think our literature is never to be anything 
but an imitation of the English ?" 

" Not at all. It is not an imitation, but, as some one has 
said, a continuation." 

" It seems to me that you take a very narrow view of the 
subject." 

" On the contrary, a very broad one. No literature is 
complete until the language in which it is written is dead. 
We may well be proud of our task and of our position. 
Let us see if we can build in any way worthy of our fore- 
fathers." 

" But I insist on originality." 

" Yes, but without spasms and convulsions. Authors 
must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by 
turning somersets in the air." 

" Well, really, the prospect from your point of view is 
not very brilliant. Pray, what you do think of our na- 
tional literature ?" 

" Simply, that a national literature is not the growth of 
a day. Centuries must contribute their dew and sunshine 
to it. Our own is growing slowly but surely, striking its 
roots downward and its branches upward, as is natural ; 
and I do not wish, for the sake of what some people call 



264 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

originality, to invert it, and try to make it grow with its 
roots in the air. And as for having it so savage and wild 
as you want it, I have only to say that all literature, as well 
as all art, is the result of culture and intellectual refine- 
ment." 

"Ah! we do not want art and refinement; we want 
genius, untutored, wild, original, free." 

" But if this genius is to find any expression it must 
employ art, for art is the external expression of our 
thoughts. Many have genius, but, wanting art, are for 
ever dumb. The two must go together to form the great 
poet, painter, or sculptor." 

" In that sense, very well." 

" I was about to say also that I thought our literature 
would finally not be wanting in a kind of universality. 
As the blood of all nations is mingling with our own, so 
will their thoughts and feelings finally mingle in our liter- 
ature. We shall draw from the Germans, tenderness; 
from the Spaniards, passion; from the French, vivacity, 
to mingle more and more with our English common sense. 
And this will give us universality, so much to be desired." 



GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD. 

First Impressions of Venice. 

[From Six Months in Italy.'] 

No city exerts so strong a spell over the imagination as 
Venice. The book of Rome has many more pages, but no 
one chapter like that of Venice. The history of Venice is 
full of dramatic interest, and poets of all nations have 
found it a fruitful storehouse of plot, incident, and charac- 
ter. Without doubt it had its fair proportion of prosaic 
tranquillity and its monotonous tracts of uneventful hap- 



GEORGE STILLMAN HILLABD, 265 

piness ; but these are unheeded in the splendor of the pic- 
turesque and salient points — its conquests, its revolutions, 
its conspiracies, and its judicial murders. Shakespeare 
makes us familiar with its name at an age when names 
are but sounds, and the forms with which he has peopled 
it are the first ever to greet the mind's eye when we ap- 
proach it. Shylock still darkens the Rialto with his 
frown; the lordly form of Othello yet stalks across the 
Piazza of St. Mark's ; and every veil that flutters in the 
breeze shrouds the roguish black eyes of Jessica. Pictures 
and engravings introduce us to its peculiar architecture, 
and we come into its presence with an image in our 
thoughts, and are not unprepared for what we see. Ven- 
ice never takes us by surprise. We are always forewarned 
and forearmed, and thus its unique character never has 
quite a fair chance with us. 

The whole scene, under the brilliant light of a noonday 
sun, is full of movement and color. As soon as the steamer 
has dropped anchor at the entrance of the Grand Canal, a 
little fleet of gondolas crowds around her, and we are 
charmed to find them looking exactly as we expected. As 
they receive the passengers they dart off" in the most easy 
and graceful manner possible, their steel prows flashing in 
the sun and their keels tracing a line of pearl upon the 
bright-green water. In time our own turn comes, and as 
we are borne along the Grand Canal the attention is every 
moment attracted by the splendid show on either side. 
The long wave which the prow turns over is dashed 
against a wall of marble-fronted palaces, the names of 
which, carelessly mentioned by the gondolier, awaken 
trains of golden memories in the mind. The breadth of 
the " silent highway " allows the sun to lie in broad, rich 
masses upon the imposing gallery of architectural pictures, 
and to produce those happy accidents of light and shade 
which the artist loves. High in the air arise the domes 
and spires of the numerous churches with which wealth 



266 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and devotion have crowded the islands of Venice, the bells 
of which are ever filling the air with their streams of un- 
dulating music. Everything is dreamlike and unsubstan- 
tial — a fairy pageant floating upon the waters ; a city of 
cloudland rather than of the earth. The gondola itself in 
which the traveller reclines contributes to weave the spell 
in which his thoughts and senses are involved. No form 
of locomotion ever gratifies so well the two warring tend- 
encies of the human soul — the love of movement and the 
love of repose. There is no noise, no fatigue, no danger, 
no dust. It is managed with such skill and so little 
apparent effort that it really seems to glide and turn by 
its own will. 

So far, the picture is all in light. But it is not without 
its shadows. A nearer view of the palaces which seem so 
beautiful in the distance reveals the decaying fortunes of 
their possessors. An indescribable but unmistakable air 
of careless neglect and unresisted dilapidation is every- 
where too plainly visible. Indeed, many of these stately 
structures are occupied as hotels and lodging-houses, their 
spacious apartments cut up by shabby wooden partitions 
and pervaded by an aspect of tawdry finery and moulder- 
ing splendor. On diverging from the Grand Canal to the 
right or left a change comes over the spirit of the scene. 
Instead of a broad highway of liquid chrysoprase, we find 
ourselves upon a narrow and muddy ditch. The sun is 
excluded by the height and proximity of the houses, and 
for the same reason there are no points of view for any- 
thing to be seen to advantage. All that meets the eye 
speaks of discomfort, dampness, and poverty. Slime, sea- 
weed, and mould cling to the walls. Water in small quan- 
tities is nothing if it be not pure. A fountain in the gar- 
den is beautiful, but the same quantity of water lying 
stagnant in one's cellar is an eyesore. The wave that 
dashes against a ship is glorious, but when it creeps 
into the hold through a defective seam it is a noisome 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 267 

intruder. Venice wants the gilding presence of sunshine. 
In a long rain it must be the most dispiriting of places. 
So when we leave the sun we part with our best friend. The 
blackj cold shadow under which the gondola creeps falls 
also upon the spirit. The ideal Venice — the superb bride- 
groom of the sea, clasped by the jewelled arms of his en- 
amored bride — disappears, and we have only a warmer 
Amsterdam. The reflection, too, forces itself upon us 
that Venice at all times was a city for the few and not 
for the many. Its nobles were lodged more royally than 
kings, but the common people must always have been 
thrust into holes close in summer, cold in winter, and 
damp at all times. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

The Last Leaf. 

I SAW him once before, 
As he passed by the door, 

And again 
The pavement-stones resound 
As he totters o'er the ground 

With his cane. 

They say that in his prime. 
Ere the pruning-knife of Time 

Cut him down, 
Not a better man was found 
By the crier on his round 

Through the town. 

But now he walks the streets. 
And he looks at all he meets 



268 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Sad and wan, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

" They are gone." 

The mossy marbles rest 

On the lips that he has pressed 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

My grandmamma has said — 
Poor old lady ! she is dead 

Long ago — 
That he had a Roman nose, 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow. 

But now his nose is thin. 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff. 
And a crook is in his back. 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here ; 
But the old three-cornered hat 
And the breeches, and all that. 

Are so queer ! 

And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 269 

In the spring, 
Let them smile, as I do now, 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where I cling. 



My Aunt. 

My aunt ! my dear unmarried aunt ! 

Long years have o'er her flown, 
Yet still she strains the aching clasp 

That binds her virgin zone ; 
I know it hurts her, though she looks 

As cheerful as she can ; 
Her waist is ampler than her life, 

For life is but a span. 



My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! 

Her hair is almost gray ; 
Why will she train that winter curl 

In such a spring-like way ? 
How can she lay her glasses down 

And say she reads as well. 
When through a double convex lens 

She just makes out to spell? 



Her father — grandpapa, forgive 

This erring lip its smiles — 
Vowed she should make the finest girl 

Within a hundred miles ; 
He sent her to a stylish school — 

'Twas in her thirteenth June — 
And with her, as the rules required, 

"Two towels and a spoon." 



270 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

They braced my aunt against a board, 

To make her straight and tall ; 
They laced her up, they starved her down, 

To make her light and small ; 
They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, 

They screwed it up with pins ; — 
Oh, never mortal suffered more 

In penance for her sins. 

So when my precious aunt was done, 

My grandsire brought her back 
(By daylight, lest some rabid youth 
Might follow on the track). 
" Ah !" said my grandsire as he shook 

Some powder in his pan, 
" What could this lovely creature do 
Against a desperate man ?" 

Alas ! nor chariot, nor barouche, 

Nor bandit cavalcade. 
Tore from the trembling father's armc* 

His all-accomplished maid. 
For her how happy had it been ! 

And Heaven had spared to me 
To see one sad, ungathered rose 

On my ancestral tree. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 271 



The Stratford Fountain.* 

Welcome, thrice welcome, is thy silvery gleam, 
Thou long-imprisoned stream ! 
Welcome the tinkle of thy crystal beads 
As plashing raindrops to the flowery meads, 
As summer's breath to Avon's whispering reeds ! 
From rock-walled channels, drowned in rayless night, 
Leap forth to life and light ; 
Wake from the darkness of thy troubled dream. 
And greet with answering smile the morning's beam ! 

No purer lymph the white-limbed Naiad knows 
Than from thy chalice flows : 
Not the bright spring of Afric's sunny shores, 
Starry with spangles washed from golden ores. 
Nor glassy stream Blandusia's fountain pours. 
Nor wave translucent where Sabrina fair 
Braids her loose-flowing hair. 
Nor the swift current, stainless as it rose 
Where chill Arveiron steals from Alpine snows. 

Here shall the traveller stay his weary feet 

To seek thy calm retreat ; 

Here at high noon the brown-armed reapers rest ; 

Here, when the shadows, lengthening from the west, 

Call the mute song-bird to his leafy nest, 

* In 1887, Mr. George W. Childs of Philadelphia, known in two 
continents for his liberality, presented to the town of Stratford-on-Avon, 
the birthplace of Shakespeare, a handsome memorial fountain. The 
presentation ceremonies were memorable. Dr. Holmes wrote and 
Henry Irving read this exquisite poem, which emphasizes in its final 
stanza that union and affection which should for ever exist between two 
nations bound each to each by such sacred associations and possessing 
mutually so rich an inheritance of splendid literature. 



272 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Matron and maid shall chat the cares away 
That brooded o'er the day, 

While flocking round them troops of children meet, 
And all the arches ring with laughter sweet. 



Here shall the steed, his patient life who spends 
In toil that never ends. 

Hot from his thirsty tramp o'er hill and plain, 
Plunge his red nostrils, while the torturing rein 
Drops in loose loops beside his floating mane ; 
Nor the poor brute that shares his master's lot 
Find his small needs forgot, — 
Truest of humble, long-enduring friends. 
Whose presence cheers, whose guardian care defends ! 

Here lark and thrush and nightingale shall sip, 
And skimming swallows dip. 

And strange shy wanderers fold their lustrous plumes, 
Fragrant from bowers that lent their sweet perfumes 
Where Psestum's rose or Persia's lilac blooms; 
Here from his cloud the eagle stoops to drink 
At the full basin's brink. 
And whet his beak against its rounded lip, * 
His glossy feathers glistening as they drip. 

Here shall the dreaming poet linger long, 
Far from his listening throng ; 
No lute nor lyre his trembling hand shall bring ; 
Here no frail Muse shall imp her crippled wing. 
No faltering minstrel strain his throat to sing. 
These hallowed echoes who shall dare to claim 
Whose tuneless voice would shame, 
Whose jangling chords with jarring notes would wrong 
The nymphs that heard the Swan of Avon's song ? 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 273 

What visions greet the pilgrim's raptured eyes ! 

What ghosts made real rise ! 

The dead return ; they breathe, they live again, 

Joined by the hosts of Fancy's airy train, 

Fresh from the springs of Shakespeare's quickening 

brain ! 
The stream that slakes the soul's diviner thirst 
Here found the sunbeams first ; 
Rich with his fame, not less shall memory prize 
The gracious gift that humbler wants supplies. 

O'er the wide waters reached the hand that gave 
To all this bounteous wave. 

With health and strength and joyous beauty fraught; 
Blest be the generous pledge of friendship, brought 
From the far home of brothers' love unbought ; 
Long may fair Avon's fountain flow, enrolled 
With storied shrines of old, 
Castalia's spring, Egeria's dewy cave, 
And Horeb's rock the God of Israel clave. 

Land of our fathers ! ocean makes us two, 
But heart to heart is true. 
Proud is your towering daughter in the West, 
Yet in her burning lifeblood reign confest 
Her mother's pulses beating in her breast. 
This holy fount, whose rills from heaven descend, 
Its gracious drops shall lend — 
Both foreheads bathed in that baptismal dew. 
And love make one the old home and the new. 

18 



274 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

To THE Dandelion. 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, 
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found. 

Which not the rich earth's ample round 
May match in wealth ! thou art more dear to me 
Than all the prouder summer blooms may be. 



Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 

Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease j 
'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now 
To rich and poor alike with lavish hand, 

Though most hearts never understand 
To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The oflered wealth with unrewarded eye. 



Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; 
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 

The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : 
Not in mid June the golden-cuirass'd bee 
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment 

In the white lily's breezy tent. 
His fragrant Sybaris, than I when first 
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 275 

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 

Where, as the breezes pass, 
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways — 
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass 
Or whiten in the wind — of waters blue 

That from the distance sparkle through 
Some woodland gap — and of a sky above 
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song. 

Who from the dark old tree 
Beside the door sang clearly all day long. 
And I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 

With news from heaven, which he did bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears. 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 

Thou art the type of those meek charities 
Which make up half the nobleness of life, 

Those cheap delights the wise 
Pluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife — 
Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes, 
Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may give 

The morsel that may keep alive 
A starving heart, and teach it to behold 
Some glimpse of God where all before was cold. 

Thy winged seeds, whereof the winds take care, 
Are like the words of poet and of sage. 
Which through the free heaven fare. 
And, now unheeded, in another age 
Take root, and to the gladdened future bear 



276 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

That witness which the present would not heed, 

Bringing forth many a thought and deed, 
And, planted safely in the eternal sky, 
Bloom into stars which earth is guided by. 

Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full 
Than all thy common brethren of the ground, 

Wherein, were we not dull, 
Some words of highest wisdom might be found. 
Yet earnest faith from day to day may cull 
Some syllables, which, rightly joined, can make 

A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache, 
And ope heaven's portals, which are near us still- 
Yea, nearer ever than the gates of ill. 

How like a prodigal doth Nature seem 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art I 

Thou teachest me to deem 
More sacredly of every human heart. 
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show 

Did we but pay the love we owe. 
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 
On all these living pages of God's book. 

But let me read thy lesson right or no. 

Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure : 

Old I shall never grow 
While thou each year dost come to keep me pure 
With legends of my childhood. Ah, we owe 
Well more than half life's holiness to these 

Nature's first lowly influences. 
At thought of which the heart's glad doors burst ope, 
In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 277 

The Gothic Genius. 

[From The Cathedral'] 

I SEEM to have heard it said by learned folk, 
Who drench you with aesthetics till you feel 
As if all beauty were a ghastly bore, 
The faucet to let loose a wash of words, 
That Gothic is not Grecian, therefore worse; 
But, being convinced by much experiment 
How little inventiveness there is in man, 
Grave copier of copies, I give thanks 
For a new relish, careless to inquire 
My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please — 
Nobly I mean, nor renegade to art. 
The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness, 
Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, 
The one thing finished in this hasty world — 
For ever finished, though the barbarous pit, 
Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout 
As if a miracle could be encored. 
But ah ! this other, this that never ends. 
Still climbing, luring Fancy still to climb. 
As full of morals half divined as life. 
Graceful, grotesque, with ever-new surprise 
Of hazardous caprices sure to please ; 
Heavy as nightmare, airy-light as fern. 
Imagination's very self in stone ! 
With one long sigh of infinite release 
From pedantries past, present, or to come, 
I looked, and owned myself a happy Goth. 
Your blood is mine, ye architects of dream, 
Builders of aspiration incomplete. 
So more consummate, souls self-confident, 
Who felt your own thought worthy of record 
In monumental pomp ! No Grecian drop 



278 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Rebukes these veins that leap with kindred thrill, 
After long exile, to the mother tongue. 



Lines on a Window in St. Margaret's 
Church, Westminster. 

The New World's sons, from England's breast we drew 
Such milk as bids remember whence we came ; 

Proud of her past, from which our future grew, 
This window we inscribe with Raleigh's name. 

On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners. 

[From My Study- Windows.'] 

So long as we continue to be the most common-schooled 
and the least cultivated people in the world, I suppose we 
must consent to endure this condescending manner of 
foreigners toward us. The more friendly they mean to be, 
the more ludicrously prominent it becomes. They can 
never appreciate the immense amount of silent work that 
has been done here, making this continent slowly fit for 
the abode of man, and which will demonstrate itself, let us 
hope, in the character of the people. Outsiders can only 
be expected to judge a nation by the amount it has con- 
tributed to the civilization of the world — the amount, that 
is, that can be seen and handled. A great place in history 
can only be achieved by competitive examinations — nay, 
by a long course of them. How much new thought have 
we contributed to the common stock ? Till that question 
can be triumphantly answered or needs no answer, we 
must continue to be simply interesting as an experiment, 
to be studied as a problem, and not respected as an attained 
result or an accomplished solution. Perhaps, as I have 
hinted, their patronizing manner toward us is the fair result 
of their failing to see here anything more than a poor imita- 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 279 

tion, a plaster cast, of Europe. And are they not partly 
right ? If the tone of the uncultivated American has too 
often the arrogance of the barbarian, is not that of the cul- 
tivated as often vulgarly apologetic? In the America they 
meet with is there the simplicity, the manliness, the ab- 
sence of sham, the sincere human nature, the sensitiveness 
to' duty and implied obligation, that in any way distin- 
guishes us from what our orators call " the effete civiliza- 
tion of the Old World " ? Is there a politician among us 
daring enough (except a Dana here and there) to risk his 
future on the chance of our keeping our word with the ex- 
actness of superstitious communities like England ? Is it 
certain that we shall be ashamed of a bankruptcy of honor 
if we can only keep the letter of our bond ? I hope we 
shall be able to answer all these questions with a frank 
" Yes." At any rate, we would advise our visitors that we 
are not merely curious creatures, but belong to the family 
of man, and that as individuals we are not to be always 
subjected to the competitive examination above mentioned, 
even if we acknowledge their competence as an examining 
board. Above all, we beg them to remember that America 
is not to us, as to them, a mere object of external interest 
to be ' discussed and analyzed, but in us, part of our very 
marrow. Let them not suppose that we conceive of our- 
selves as exiles from the graces and amenities of an older 
date than we, though very much at home in a state of 
things not yet all it might be or should be, but which we 
mean to make so, and which we find both wholesome and 
pleasant for men (though perhaps not for dilettanti) to live 
in. " The full tide of human existence " may be felt here 
as keenly as Johnson felt it at Charing Cross, and in a 
larger sense. I know one person who is singular enough 
to think Cambridge the very best spot on the habitable 
globe. " Doubtless God could have made a better, but 
doubtless he never did." 
It will take England a great while to get over her airs 



280 AMEEICAX LITERATVEE. 

of patronage toward us. or even passably to conceal them. 
She cannot help confounding the people with the country, 
and regarding us as lusty juveniles. She has a conviction 
that whatever good there is in us is wholly English, when 
the truth is that we are worth nothing except so far as we 
have disinfected ourselves of Anglicism. She is especially 
condescending just now, and la\ishes sugar-plums on us 
as if we had not outgrown them. I am no^ believer in 
sudden conversions, especially in sudden conversions to a 
favorable opinion of people who have just proved you to 
be mistaken in judgment and therefore unwise in policy. 
I never blamed her for not wishing: well to democracv — 
how should she ? — but Alabamas are not wishes. Let her 
not be too hasty in beheving Mr. Reverdy Johnson's pleas- 
ant words. Though there is no thoughtful man in America 
who would not consider a war with England the greatest 
of calamities, vet the feeUno: toward her here is verv far 
from cordial, whatever our minister may say in the eflfu- 
sion that comes after ample dining. Mr. Adams, with his 
famous " My Lord, this means war,'' perfectly represented 
his country. Justly or not, we have a feeling that we have 
been wronged, not merely insulted. The only sure way 
of bringing about a healthy relation between the two coun- 
tries is for Enghshmen to clear their minds of the notion 
that we are always to be treated as a kind of inferior 
and deported Englishman whose nature they perfectly 
understand, and whose back they accordingly stroke the 
wrong way of the fur with amazing perseverance. Let 
them learn to treat us naturally on our merits as human 
beings, as they would a German or a Frenchman, and not 
as if we were a kind of counterfeit Briton whose crime 
appeared in every shade of difference ; and before long 
there would come that right feeling which we naturally 
call a good understanding. 

The common blood, and still more the common lan- 
guage, are fatal instruments of misapprehension. Let 



JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL. 281 

them give up trying to understand us — still more, think- 
ing that they do — and acting in various absurd ways as 
the necessary consequence; for they will never arrive at 
that devoutly-to-be-wished consummation till they learn 
to look at us as we are, and not as they suppose us to be. 

Dear old long-estranged mother-in-law ! it is a great 
many years since we parted. Since 1660, when you 
married again, you have been a stepmother to us. Put 
on your spectacles, dear madam. Yes, we have grown, 
and changed likewise. You would not let us darken 
your doors if you could help it. We know that perfectly 
well. But, pray, when we look to be treated as men, 
don't shake that rattle in our faces nor talk baby to us 
any longer. 

" Do, child, go to it grand am, child ; 
Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will 
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig !" 



Classical Education. 

[From the oration on the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Har- 
vard College.] 

One is sometimes tempted to think that all learning is 
as repulsive to ingenuous youth as the multiplication table 
to Scott's little friend Marjorie Fleming, though this is due 
in great part to mechanical methods of teaching. " I am 
now going to tell you," she v^rites, " the horrible and 
wretched plaege that my multiplication table gives me: 
you can't conceive it; the most Devilish thing is eight 
times eight and seven times seven ; it is what Nature itself 
can't endure." I know that I am approaching treacherous 
ashes which cover burning coals, but I must on. 

Is not Greek — nay, even Latin — yet more unendurable 
than poor Marjorie's task? How many boys have not 
sympathized with Heine in hating the Romans because 



282 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

they invented Latin grammar? And they were quite 
right, for we begin the study of languages at the wrong 
end — at the end which Nature does not offer us — and are 
thoroughly tired of them before we arrive at them, if you 
will pardon the bull. But is that any reason for not 
studying them in the right way ? I am familiar with the 
arguments for making the study of Greek especially a 
matter of choice or chance. 

I admit their plausibility, and the honesty of those who 
urge them. I should be willing also to admit that the 
study of the ancient languages without the hope or the 
prospect of going on to what they contain would be useful 
only as a form of intellectual gymnastics. Even so they 
would be as serviceable as the higher mathematics to most 
of us. But I think that a wise teacher should adapt his 
tasks to the highest, and not the lowest, capacities of the 
taught. For those lower also they would not be wholly 
without profit. When there is a tedious sermon, says 
George Herbert, God takes a text and teacheth patience 
— not the least pregnant of lessons. One of the arguments 
against the compulsory study of Greek — namely, that it 
Is wiser to give our time to modern languages and modern 
history than to dead languages and ancient history — in- 
volves, I think, a verbal fallacy. Only those languages 
can properly be called dead in which nothing living has 
been written. If the classic languages are dead, they yet 
speak to us, and with a clearer voice than that of any 
living tongue. 

Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotiindo 
Musa loqiii, praeter laudem nullius avaris. 

If their language is dead, yet the literature it enshrines 
is rammed with life as perhaps no other writing, except 
Shakespeare's, ever was or will be. It is as contemporary 
with to-day as with the ears it first enraptured, for it 
appeals not to the man of then or now, but to the entire 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 283 

round of human nature itself. Men are ephemeral or 
evanescent, but whatever page the authentic soul of man 
has touched with her immortalizing finger, no matter how 
long ago, is still young and fair as it was to the world's 
gray fathers. Oblivion looks in the face of the Grecian 
Muse only to forget her errand. Plato and Aristotle are 
not names, but things. On a chart that should represent 
the firm earth and wavering oceans of the human mind, 
they would be marked as mountain-ranges, for ever mod- 
ifying the temperature, the currents, and the atmosphere 
of thought — astronomical stations whence the move- 
ments of the lamps of heaven might best be observed 
and predicted. Even for the mastering of our own 
tongue there is no expedient so fruitful as translation 
out of another: how much more when that other is a 
language at once so precise and so flexible as the Greek ! 
Greek literature is also the most fruitful comment on our 
own. 

Coleridge has told us with what profit he was made to 
study Shakespeare and Milton in conjunction with the 
Greek dramatists. It is no sentimental argument for this 
study that the most justly balanced, the most serene, and 
the most fecundating minds since the revival of learning 
have been steeped in and saturated with Greek literature. 
We know not whither other studies will lead us, especially 
if dissociated from this : we do know to what summits far 
above our region of turmoil this has led, and what the 
many-sided outlook thence. Will such studies make 
anachronisms of us, unfit us for the duties and the busi- 
ness of to-day ? I can recall no writer more truly modern 
than Montaigne, who was almost more at home in Athens 
and Rome than in Paris. Yet he was a thrifty manager 
of his estate and a most competent mayor of Bordeaux. 
I remember passing once in London where demolition 
for a new thoroughfare was going on. Many houses left 
standing in the rear of those cleared away bore signs with 



284 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the inscription "Ancient Lights." This was the protest 
of their owners against being built out by the new im- 
provements from such glimpse of heaven as their fathers 
had, without adequate equivalent. I laid the moral to 
heart. 



JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 
The Fall of Antwerp. * 

[From The Rise of the Dutch Republic.'] 

Meantime, the Spanish cavalry had cleft its way through 
the city. On the side farthest removed from the castle, 
along the horse-market, opposite the New-town, the States 
dragoons and the light-horse of Beveren had been posted, 
and the flying masses of pursuers and pursued swept at 
last through this outer circle. Champagny was already 
there. He essayed, as his last hope, to rally the cavalry 
for a final stand, but the effort was fruitless. Already 
seized by the panic, they had attempted to rush from the 
city through the gate of Eeker. It was locked ; they then 
turned and fled toward the Red Gate, where they were met 
face to face by Don Pedro Tassis, who charged upon them 
with his dragoons. Retreat seemed hopeless. A horse- 
man in complete armor, with lance in rest, was seen to 
leap from the parapet of the outer wall into the moat 
below, whence, still on horseback, he escaped with life. 
Few were so fortunate. The confused mob of fugitives 
and conquerors — Spaniards, Walloons, Germans, burgh- 
ers — struggling, shouting, striking, cursing, dying, swayed 
hither and thither like a stormy sea. Along the spacious 
horse-market the fugitives fled onward toward the quays. 
Many fell beneath the swords of the Spaniards, numbers 
were trodden to death by the hoofs of horses, still greater 



JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 285 

multitudes were hunted into the Scheld. Champagny 
who had thought it possible, even at the last moment, 
to make a stand in the New-town and to fortify the palace 
of the Hansa, saw himself deserted. With great daring 
and presence of mind he effected his escape to the fleet of 
the prince of Orange in the river. The marquis of Havre, 
of whom no deeds of valor on that eventful day have been 
recorded, was equally successful. The unlucky Oberstein, 
attempting to leap into a boat, missed his footing, and, 
oppressed by the weight of his armor, was drowned. 

Meantime, while the short November day was fast 
declining, the combat still raged in the interior of the 
city. Various currents of conflict, forcing their separate 
way through many streets, had at last mingled in the 
Grande Place. Around this irregular, not very spacious 
square stood the gorgous hotel de ville and the tall, many- 
storied, fantastically-gabled, richly-decorated palaces of the 
guilds. There a long struggle took place. It was termi- 
nated for a time by the cavalry of Vargas, who, arriving 
through the streets of Saint Joris, accompanied by the 
traitor Van Ende, charged decisively into the melee. 
The masses were broken, but multitudes of armed men 
found refuge in the buildings, and every house became a 
fortress. From every window and balcony a hot fire was 
poured into the square, as, pent in a corner, the burghers 
stood at last at bay. It was difficult to carry the houses 
by storm, but they were soon set on fire. A large number 
of sutlers and other varlets had accompanied the Spaniards 
from the citadel, bringing torches and kindling materials 
for the express purpose of firing the town. With great 
dexterity these means were now applied, and in a brief 
interval the city-hall and other edifices on the square were 
in flames. The conflagration spread with rapidity, house 
after house, street after street, taking fire. Nearly a thou- 
sand buildings in the most splendid and wealthy quarter 
of the city were soon in a blaze, and multitudes of human 



286 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

beings were burned with them. In the city-hall many- 
were consumed, while others leaped from the windows to 
renew the combat below. The many tortuous streets 
which led down a slight descent from the rear of the 
town-house to the quays were all one vast conflagra- 
tion. On the other side the magnificent cathedral, sep- 
arated from the Grande Place by a single row of build- 
ings, was lighted up, but not attacked, by the flames. 
The tall spire cast its gigantic shadow across the last 
desperate conflict. In the street called the Canal au 
Sucre, immediately behind the town-house, there was a 
fierce struggle, a horrible massacre. A crowd of burgh- 
ers, grave magistrates, and such of the German soldiers 
as remained alive still confronted the ferocious Spaniards. 
There, amid the flaming desolation, Goswyn Verreyck, the 
heroic margrave of the city, fought with the energy of 
hatred and despair. The burgomaster. Van der Meere, lay 
dead at his feet : senators, soldiers, citizens fell fast around 
him, and he sank at last upon a heap of slain. With him 
effectual resistance ended. The remaining combatants were 
butchered or were slowly forced downward to perish in the 
Scheld. Women, children, old men, were killed in count- 
less numbers, and still, through all this havoc, directly over 
the heads of the struggling throng, suspended in mid-air 
above the din and smoke of the conflict, there sounded^ 
every half-quarter of every hour, as if in gentle mockery, 
from the belfry of the cathedral the tender and melodious 
chimes. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE, 287 

EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
The Cask of Amontillado. 

[From The Prose Tales,'] 

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I 
best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed 
revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, 
will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a 
threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point 
definitely settled, but the very definiteness with which it 
was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only 
punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unre- 
dressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is 
equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make 
himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong. 

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed 
had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good-will. I 
continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he 
did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought 
of his immolation. 

He had a weak point, this Fortunato, although in other 
regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. 
He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few 
Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part 
their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and oppor- 
tunity — to practise imposture upon the British and Aus- 
trian millionaires. In painting and gemmary Fortunato, 
like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of 
old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ 
from him materially : I was skilful in the Italian vintages 
myself, and bought largely whenever I could. 

It was about dusk one evening during the supreme mad- 
ness of the carnival season that I encountered my friend. 
He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been 



288 AMERICAN LITERATVEE. 

drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a 
tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted 
by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him 
that I thought I should never have done wringing his 
hand. 

I said to him, '' My dear Fortunato, you are luckily 
met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day ! But 
I have received a pipe of what passes for amontillado, and 
I have my doubts." 

" How !" said he, " amontillado ? A pipe ? Impossible I 
And in the middle of the carnival !" 

" I have my doubts," I replied ; " and I was silly enough 
to pay the full amontillado price without consulting you 
in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fear- 
ful of losing a bargain." 

" Amontillado !" 

" I have my doubts.'^ 

"Amontillado!" 

" And I must satisfy them." 

" Amontillado !" 

" As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If 
any one has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me — " 

" Luchesi cannot tell amontillado from sherry." 

" And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match 
for your own." 

" Come, let us go." 

"Whither?" 

" To your vaults." 

"My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good- 
nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi — " 

" I have no engagement — come." 

" My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the 
severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The 
vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with 
nitre." 

" Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. 



EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 289 

Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for 
Luchesi, he cannot distinguish sherry from amontillado." 

Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. 
Putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire 
closely about my person^ I suffered him to hurry me to my 
palazzo. 

There were no attendants at home ; they had absconded 
to make merry in honor of the time. I had told them that 
I should not return until the morning, and had given them 
explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders 
were sufficient, I well knew, to ensure their immediate dis- 
appearance, one and all, as soon as my back w^as turned. 

I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and, giving 
one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of 
rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed 
down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be 
cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot 
of the descent, and stood together on the damp ground of 
the catacombs of the Montresors. 

The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon 
his cap jingled as he strode. 

" The pipe ?" said he. 

" It is farther on," said I ; " but observe the white web- 
work which gleams from these cavern walls." 

He turned toward me, and looked into my eyes with two 
filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication. 

" Nitre ?" he asked at length. 

*^ Nitre," I replied. " How long have you had that 
cough ?" 

" Ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! — ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! — ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! 
ugh ! ugh ! — ugh ! ugh ! ugh !" 

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many 
minutes. 

" It is nothing," he said, at last. 

" Come," I said, with decision, " we will go back ; your 
health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, be- 

19 



290 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

loved ; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to 
be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; 
you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, 
there is Luchesi — " 

"Enough!" he said; "the cough is a mere nothing; it 
will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough." 

" True, true," I replied ; " and, indeed, I had no inten- 
tion of alarming you unnecessarily, but you should use 
all proper caution. A draught of this medoc will defend 
us from the damps." 

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew 
from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould. 

" Drink," I said, presenting him the wine. 

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and 
nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled. 

" I drink," he said, " to the buried that repose around 
us." 

" And I to your long life." 

He again took my arm, and we proceeded. 

" These vaults," he said, " are extensive." 

" The Montresors," I replied, " were a great and numer- 
ous family." 

" I forget your arms." 

"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot 
crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in 
the heel." 

"And the motto." 

" Nemo me impune lacessiV^ 

"Good!" he said. 

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My 
own fancy grew warm with the medoc. We had passed 
through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons 
intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. 
I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize For- 
tunato by an arm above the elbow. 

"The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases. It hangs like 



EDGAR ALLAN POE. 291 

moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The 
drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will 
go back ere it is too late. Your cough — " 

" It is nothing," he said ; " let us go on. But first, an- 
other draught of the medoc.'^ 

I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He 
emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce 
light. He laughed and threw the bottle upward with a 
gesticulation I did not understand. 

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the move- 
ment — a grotesque one. 

" You do not comprehend ?" he said. 

" Not I," I repHed. 

" Then you are not of the brotherhood.'^ 

^^How?" 

" You are not of the Masons." 

^' Yes, yes," I said — " yes, yes." 

" You ? Impossible ! A Mason ?" 

" A Mason," I replied. 

" A sign," he said. 

" It is this," I answered, producing a trowel from beneath 
the folds of my roquelaire. 

" You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. " But 
let us proceed to the amontillado." 

" Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak 
and again off'ering him my arm. He leaned upon it heav- 
ily. We continued our route in search of the amontillado. 
We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed 
on, and, descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which 
the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow 
than flame. 

At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared 
another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with 
human remains, piled to the vault overhead in the 
fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides 
of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this 



292 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown 
down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming 
at one point a mound of some size. Within the walls 
thus exposed by the displacing of the bones we per- 
ceived a still interior recess, in depth about four feet, 
in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to 
have been constructed for no especial use within itself, 
but formed merely the interval betw^een tw^o of the 
colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was 
backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid 
granite. 

It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, 
endeavored to pry into the depth of the recess. Its ter- 
mination the feeble light did. not enable us to see. 

" Proceed," I said ; " herein is the amontillado. As for 
Luchesi — " 

" He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend as he 
stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immedi- 
ately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the 
extremity of the niche, and, finding his progress ar- 
rested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A 
moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. 
In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each 
other about two feet horizontally. From one of these 
depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. 
Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the 
work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much 
astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key, I stepped 
back from the recess. 

" Pass your hand," I said, " over the wall ; you cannot 
help feeling the nitre. Indeed it is very damp. Once 
more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must 
positively leave you. But I must first render you all the 
little attentions in my power." 

" The amontillado !" ejaculated my friend, not yet recov- 
ered from his astonishment. 



EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 293 

"True," I replied; "the amontillado." 

As I said these words I busied myself among the pile 
of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them 
aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building-stone and 
mortar. With these materials and the aid of my trowel I 
began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche. 

I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when 
I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a 
great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of 
this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. 
It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a 
long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the 
third, and the fourth, and then I heard the furious vibra- 
tions of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, 
during which, that I might hearken to it with the more 
satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the 
bones. When at last the clanking subsided I resumed 
the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, 
the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now 
nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, 
and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw 
a few feeble rays upon the figure within. 

A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting sud- 
denly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to 
thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesi- 
tated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to 
grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an 
instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the 
solid fabric of the catacombs and felt satisfied. I reap- 
proached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who 
clamored. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in 
volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamorer 
grew still. 

It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a 
close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth, and the 
tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the 



294 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted 
and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed 
it partially in its destined position. But now there came 
from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon 
my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had 
difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato. 
The voice said, 

"' Ha ! ha ! ha ! — he ! he ! — a very good joke indeed — 
an excellent jest! We will have many a rich laugh 
about it at the palazzo — he! he! he! — over our wine — 
he! he! he!" 

" The amontillado !" I said. 

" He ! he ! he ! — he ! he ! he ! — yes, the amontillado. 
But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting 
us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? 
Let us be gone." 

"Yes," I said, "let us be gone." 

^^ For the love of God, Montresor P^ 

"Yes," I said, "for the love of God." 

But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I 
grew impatient. I called aloud, 

" Fortunato !" 

No answer. I called again, 

" Fortunato !" 

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remain- 
ing aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in 
return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick — 
on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened 
to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into 
its position ; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry 
I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a 
century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat ! 



EDGAR ALLAN POE. 295 



To Helen. 

Helen, thy beauty is to me 

Like those Nicean barks of yore, 

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea. 
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore 
To his own native shore. 

On desperate seas long wont to roam. 
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 
To the glory that was Greece 

And the grandeur that was Rome. 

Lo ! in yon brilliant window-niche 
How statue-like I see thee stand, 
The agate lamp within thy hand ! 

Ah, Psyche, from the regions which 
Are Holy Land ! 

Ulalume. 

The skies they were ashen and sober ; 

The leaves they were crisped and sere — 

The leaves they were withering and sere ; 
It was night in the lonesome October 

Of my most immemorial year ; 
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, 

In the misty mid-region of Weir — 
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber 

In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 

Here once, through an alley Titanic 
Of cypress, I roamed with my soul — 
Of cypress, with Psyche, my soul. 

These were days when my heart was volcanic 



296 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

As the scoriae rivers that roll — 

As the lavas that restlessly roll 
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek 

In the ultimate climes of the pole — 
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek 

In the realms of the boreal pole. 

Our talk had been serious and sober, 

But our thoughts they were palsied and sere- 
Our memories were treacherous and sere — 

For we knew not the month was October, 
And we marked not the night of the year — 
(Ah, night of all nights in the year !) 

We noted not the dim lake of Auber — 

(Though once we had journeyed down here)- 

Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, 
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 

And now, as the night was senescent, 
And star-dials pointed to morn — 
As the star-dials hinted of morn — 

At the end of our path a liquescent 
And nebulous lustre was born. 

Out of which a miraculous crescent 
Arose with a duplicate horn — 

Astarte's bediamonded crescent. 
Distinct with its duplicate horn. 

And I said, " She is warmer than Dian : 
She rolls through an ether of sighs- — 
She revels in a region of sighs : 

She has seen that the tears are not dry on 
These cheeks, where the worm never dies, 

And has come past the stars of the Lion 
To point us the path to the skies — 
To the Lethean peace of the skies — 



EDGAR ALLAN POE. 297 

Come up, in despite of the Lion, 

To shine on us with her bright eyes — 
Come up through the lair of the Lion 

With love in her luminous eyes." 



But Psyche, uplifting her finger. 

Said, " Sadly this star I mistrust — 

Her pallor I strangely mistrust. 
Oh, hasten ! — oh, let us not linger ! 

Oh, fly ! let us fly ! for we must." 
In terror she spoke, letting sink her 

Wings until they trailed in the dust — 
In agony sobbed, letting sink her 

Plumes till they trailed in the dust — 

Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. 

I replied, " This is nothing but dreaming : 

Let us on by this tremulous light — 

Let us bathe in this crystalline light ! 
Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming 

With Hope and in Beauty to-night. 

See ! it flickers up the sky through the night ! 
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, 

And be sure it will lead us aright — 
We safely may trust to a gleaming 

That cannot but guide us aright. 

Since it flickers up to heaven through the night." 

Thus I pacified Psyche, and kissed her, 
And tempted her out of her gloom — 
And conquered her scruples and gloom ; 

And we passed to the end of the vista. 

But were stopped by the door of a tomb — 
By the door of a legended tomb ; 



298 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

And I said, " What is written, sweet sister, 
On the door of this legended tomb ?" 
She replied, " Ulalume — Ulalume — 
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume !" 

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober 
As the leaves that were crisped and sere — 
As the leaves that were withering and sere, 

And I cried, " It was surely October, 
On this very night of last year, 
That I journeyed — I journeyed down here — 
That I brought a dread burden down here. 
On this night of all nights in the year. 
Ah, what demon has tempted me here ? 

Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber — 
This misty mid-region of Weir — 

Well I know now, this dank tarn of Auber, 
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.'^ 




Acadia, 105. 

Adams, John, 30, 66, 75. 

Adams, John Quincy, 67, 71. 

Adams, Samuel, 27, 28. 

Addison, J., 41. 

Agassiz, Louis, 109, 110. 

Alcott, A. B,, 82, 85, 90. 

Alcott, L. M., 85. 

Aldrich, T. B., 105, 152, 155. 

Allan, John, 127. 

Allston, W., 71, 72, 156. 

Alsop, Richard, 36. 

Ames, Fisher, 30, 32, 37. 

Anarchiadj The, 36. 

Anthology Club, 71, 76. 

Arbuthnot, J., 47. 

Argonauts of ^49, 148. 

Astor, J. J., 43, 57. 

Atlantic Monthly, 115, 138, 139, 140. 

Autobiography of Franklin, 21. 

Bacon, Francis, 9. 

Ballads, 36, 37. 

Bancroft, George, 88, 119, 121, 123, 

126. 
Barlow, Joel, 33-37. 
Bay Psalm-Book, 16. 
Beckford, W., 48. 
Beecher, Dr. Lyman, 95. 
Beers, E. L., 146. 
Berkeley, Sir W., 13. 



Bird, R. M., 61, 136. 

Blair, Judge, 16. 

Boker, G. H., 152, 156. 

Bowdoin College, 102. 

Bradford, Andrew, 22. 

Bradford, William, 17. 

Bradstreet, Anne, 18. 

Brainard, J. G. C, 72. 

Bridgeman, Laura, 146. 

Brook Farm, 81, 83, 85, 86, 90. 

Brooks, M. G., 72. 

Brooks, P. S., 95. 

Brown, C. B., 40, 47, 48, 53, 134. 

Brown, J., 94. 

Brown University, 16. 

Browne, C. F., 160, 161. 

Brownell, H. H., 146. 

Brownson, Orestes Augustus, 72, 74 

Bryan, S. M., 151. 

Bryant, W. C, 46, 57-60, 62, 71, 

100, 106, 109, 154, 165, 207. 
Buckminster, J. S., 68, 72, 73. 
Bull, Ole, 104. 
Burke, Edmund, 29. 
Burnett, F. H., 139, 140. 
Burr, Aaron, 32. 
Butler, Samuel, 34. 
Byron, Lord, 45, 64, 76. 

Cable, G. W., 143. 
Calhoun, J. C, 65, 66, 70, 71. 

299 



300 



INDEX, 



Calvert, G. H., 131. 

Campbell, John, 22. 

Carey, Alice, 147. 

Carey, Phoebe, 147. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 77, 95, 116. 

Channing, E. T., 71. 

Channing, W. E., 63, 64, 65, 72, 

73, 76, 79, 81, 84, 99, 226. 
Channing, W. E., 86. 
Channing, W. H., 82, 85, 86. 
Chaucer, G., 104. 
Child, F. J., 163. 
Child, L. M., 28, 134, 135. 
Choate, Rufus, 65, 69, 70, 222. 
Clarke, J. F., 84, 111. 
Clay, Henry, 65, 71. 
Clemens, S. L., 160, 161. 
Cleveland, H. R., 109, 110. 
Clongh, A. H., 106. 
Coleridge, S. T., 64, 71, 77, 81, 130. 
Colleges : 

Brown University, 16. 

College of New Jersey, 16, 36. 

Columbia College, 16. 

Dartmouth, m, 69, 112. 

Harvard, 15, 63, 68, 71, 72, 74, 
111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 119, 
121, 122, 123, 125. 

University of Pennsylvania, 16, 
20. 

University of Virginia, 30, 127. 

William and Mary, 15, 16, 30. 

AVilliams, 58. 

Yale, 16, 49. 
Columbiad, The, 34, 35. 
Constitution, the, 30, 31. 
Cooke, J. E., 131. 
Cooke, Pendleton, 131. 
Cooke, R. T., 139. 
Cooper, J. F., 46, 48-56, 91, 106, 

133, 195. 
Cranch, C. P., 82, 106. 



Crawford, F. M., 143, 144. 

Crisis, The, 29. 
" Croaker & Co.,'^ 56, 57. 
Curtis, G. W., 39, 82, 83. 
Cuvier, 76, 110. 

Dana, Charles A., 82, 83. 

Dana, R. H., 71. 

Dana, R. H., Jr., 111. 

Dante, 106, 154. 

Davis, R. H., 139. 

"Day of Doom,'' 18. 

Defoe, D., 41. 

Dewey, O., 72, 73. 

Dial, The, 78, 81, 82. 

Drake, J. R., 46, 55, 56, 57, 204. 

Draper, Prof., 145. 

Drayton, M., 10, 108. 

Dwight, Prof., 65. 

Dwight, Theo., 36. 

Dwight, Timothy, 36, 57. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 16, 20, 36, 

39, 77. 
Eggleston, E., 143, 151. 
Eliot, Bishop, 16, 82. 
Elliot, 99. 
Emerson, R. W., 28, 65, 75-82, 84, 

85, 88, 90, 91, 93, 94, 109, 113, 

115, 116, 117, 127, 160, 227. 
Emerson, Rev. Wm., 28, 75, 90. 
Endicott, J., 88, 104. 
Everett, A. H., 65, 67, 68. 
Everett, Edward, 63, 65, 68, 69, 71, 

76, 125, 220. 

Farragut, Admiral, 146. 
Federalist, The, 31. 
Felton, C. C, 109. 
" Fern, Fanny," 162. 
Fielding, H.,*47. 
Finch, F. M., 145. 



INDEX. 



301 



First literary journal, 23. 

First printing-press, 16. 

Fiske, J., 119, 126. 

Folger, P., 19. 

Follen, Charles, 72, 74. 

Foote, S. A., ^'o. 

Forrest, E., 136. 

Franklin, B., 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 36, 



Hayne. P. H., 131, 132. 
Havne, R. Y., 65, 70, 131. 
Hedge, Prof., 66. 
Henry, Patrick, 24, 28. 
Higginson, T. W., 162. 
Hildreth, R., 96, 119, 125, 126. 
Hillard, G. S., 109, 110, 264. 
Hillliouse, J., 72. 



38, 39, 40, 76, 125, 126, 162, 168. History of Xew England, 17. 



Franklin, J., 22. 
Freeman, E. A., 126. 
Freneau, P., 33, 35, 37,106,181. 
Fruitlands, 85. 



Hktory of Plymouth, 17. 
Holland, J. G., 137. 
Holmes, O. AV., 78, 101, 111-114, 
115, 146, 160, 267. 



Fuller, M., 78, 82, 84, 85, 95, 111, ; Homer, 59, 106, 154. 



236. 
Furness, H. H., 163, 164. 

Garibaldi, 99. 
Garrison, W. L., 94, 95-97. 
Gladstone, W. E., 31. 
Godwin, William, 47, 53. 
Good News from Virginia^ 13. 
Gore, C, Q^. 
Goethe, 64, 76, 79, 103. 
Grant, U. S., 145. 
Greeley, H., 145, 152. 
Greene, G. W., 109, 111. 

Haggard, R., 136. 

Hale, E. E., 138. 

Halleck, F., 46, 55, 56, 57, 62, 116, 

206. 
Hamilton, A., 30, 31, 32, 126. 
Hammond, J.^14. 
Harper s Magazine, 142, 163. 
Harte, Bret, 149, 151. 
Harvard, J., 15. 
Hawthorne, J., 94. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 18, 82, 84, 

85, 88-94, 97, 99, 102, 112, 115, Keats, J., 75, 131. 

116, 127, 130, 134, 240. 
Hayes, President, 115. 



Hopkins, L., 36. 
Hopkinson, F., 37. 
Hopkinson, J., 37. 
Howe, J. W., 145, 146. 
Howells, W. D., 141, 142. 
HudibraSj 34. 
Humboldt, A., 110. 
Humor, American, 160. 
Humphreys, D., 36. 
Hunt, H.,' 147, 148. 

Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, 

19. 
Irving, W., 27, 39-46, 53, 57, 58, 

62, 92, 102, 120, 122, 160, 183. 



Jacksox, Dr. C, 77. 

Jackson, Helen Hunt, 147, 148. 

James, H., Jr., 141, 142, 143. 

Jay, J., 30, 31. 

Jefferson, T., 16, 30, 31, 58, 65, 66, 

76, 126, 173. 
Jewett, S. O., 139, 140. 
Jones, J. P., 52. 
Judd, Sylvester, 137. 



Kennedy, J. P., 128, 135. 
Key, F. S., 131. 



302 



INDEX. 



King, Charles, 144. 
Kingsley, C, 106. 
Kirk, J. R, 119, 126. 
Knickerbocker, Diedrich, 41, 44. 
Knickerbocker School, 46. 
Kossuth, L., 99. 

Lamb, C, 72. 

Landor, W. S., 77. 

Lanier, S., 132. 

Larcom, L., 147. 

Lazarus, E., 147. 

Lea, H. C, 12L 

Leah and Eachel, 13. 

Leather-Stocking Tales, 50, 51. 

Leland, C. G., 152, 157. 

Lewis, '' Monk," 48. 

Longfellow, H. W., 18, 28, 89, 93, 

99, 101-109, 111, 114, 115, 116, 

118, 127, 251. 
Lounsbury, Prof., 51. 
Lowell, J. K., 10, 34, 55, 78, 79, 

101, 106, 109, 114-118, 127, 

137, 146, 160, 163, 274. 

Macaulay, T., 118, 120. 

MacMaster, J. B., 119, 126. 

Madison, J., 30, 31, 33, 35. 

McFingal, 34. 

Magna! ia^ The, 19. 

Marrvat, Captain, 52. 

Marshall, J., 30, 32. 

Marvel, Ik (see Mitchell, D. G.). 

Mather, C, 19, 38, 167. 

Mather, I., 19. 

Mayo, W. S,, 136. 

Meiville, H., 136. 

Merry Mount, 17, 18, 122. 

Miller, J., 149, 150, 151. 

Milton, J., 98. 

Mitchell, D. G., 161, 162. 

Monroe, J., 16. 

Morris, Gouverneur, 125. 



Morris, G. P., 60. 

Morton, T., 17. 

Motley, J. L., 18, 113, 119, 121-123, 

284. 
Moulton, L. C, 139, 140. 
Murfree, M. N., 139, 141. 

NeiD England Canaan, 17. 

New France, 25, 26. 

Newspapers, 22. 

North American Review, 68, 71, 72, 

76, 115, 122. 
Norton, C. E., 81, 106, 115. 

OssoLT, M., 84. 
Otis, J., 27, 28. 
Overland Monthly, 149. 

Paine, T., 28, 29, 30. 

Palfrey, J. G., 119, 125. 

Parker, T., 82, 85, 86, 162. 

Parkman, F., 119, 123-125. 

Parsons, T. W., 104, 109, 110, 111. 

Parton, J., 162. 

Paulding, J. K., 41, 46, 47. 

Payne, J. H., 61. 

Peirce, B., 111. 

Percival, J. G., 71. 

Phelps, E. S., 139, 140. 

Phillips, W., 94, 95, 162. 

Piatt, J. J.,' 141, 151. 

Pierce, F., 89, 90, 91. 

Pierpont, J., 72. 

Pike, A., 131, 146. 

Pinkney, E. C, 131. 

Pleiades of Connecticut, 36. 

Poe, E. A., 45, 48, 116, 127-131, 

134, 160, 287. 
Polk, President, 121. 
" Poor Richard,'^ 21. 
Pope, A., 38, 58, 64. 
Pre-Raphaelites, 156. 



INDEX. 



303 



Prescott, W. H., 119, 120, 122, 124. 



Preston, M., 147. 



QuiNCY, J., 27, 28. 

Eamsf.y, D., 22. 

Kandall, J. K., 145. 

Kead, T. B., 145, 152, 156. 

Eevere, Paul, 28, 104. 

Richardson, S., 47. 

Richter, J. P., 103. 

Ripley, G., 64, 82, 84, 85, 110. 

Root, G. R, 146. 

Russell, C, 52. 

Ryan, Abram Joseph, ] 32. 

Sands, R. C, 58. 

Sandys, G., 13. 

Saxe, John G., 118. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 41, 45, 48, 49, 51, 

53, 55, 64, 76, 96. 
Scribners Monthly, 138. 
Sedgwick, C. M., 134, 135. 
Shakespeare, W., 9, 10, 38, 79. 
Shelley, P. B., 47, 48, 64, 76, 130. 
Sheridan, P., 145. 
Sherman, W. T., 145. 
Sigourney, L. H., 72. 
Simms, W. G., 133, 134. 
Simple Cobbler of Aggawam, 18. 
Sketch-Book, The, 42, 44, 45, 48, 59, 

102. 
Smith, E., 36. 
Smith, J., 14. 
Smith, Seba, 160. 
Smith, S. F., 111. 
Smollett, T., 47. 

Southern Literary Messenger, 128. 
Southey, R., 72, 81. 
Sparks, J., 119, 125. 
Spencer, H., 126. 
SpofTord, H. E. P., 139, 140. 
Sprague, C, 72. 



Spy, The, 50, 59. 
Standish, M., 12, 17. 
Stanley, A. P., 122. 
Stedman, E. C, 152, 155, 163. 
Stephen, L., 130. 
Stephens, A. H., 145. 
Sterne, L., 41, 47. 
Stoddard, R.H:, 152, 154, 155. 
Stone, J. A., 61. 
Story, Jos., 30, 33, 179. 
Story, W. W., 33. 
Stowe, C. E., 95. 
Stowe, PI. B., 94, 95, 96. 
Sumner, C, 94, 99, 109, 110. 
Sumner, H., 95. 
Swift, J., 41. 

Taylor, B., 106, 151-154. 
Taylor-Hansen, M., 154. 
Thackeray, W. M., 135. 
"Thanatopsis," 57, 58, 59, 60. 
Thaxter, C, 147. 
Thoreau, H. D., 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 

90, 91, 238. 
Ticknor, G., 102, 120. 
Timrod, H., 131. 
Trowbridge, J. T., 138. 
True Relation of Virginia, 14. 
Trumbull, J., 33, 34, 35, 36. 
Twain, Mark (see Clemens, S. L.). 
Tyler, M. C, 163. 
Tylor, Royall, 61. 
Tyndall, J., 77. 

TJnde Tom's Cabin, 96, 134. 

Verne, J., 130. 
Yerplanck, G. C, 58. 

Waddel, J., 33, 174. 

Wallace, Lew, 144. 

Walpole, H., 48. 

Ward, xArtemus (see Browne, C. F.) 



304 



INDEX. 



Ward, N., 18. 

Ware, H., 74. 

Ware, H., Jr., 74, 76. 

Ware, W., 72, 74. 

Warner, C. D., 163. 

Warren, Gen., 82. 

Washington, G., 29, 30, 40, 44, 102, 

125. 
Webster, D., 32, 62, 65, 66-69, 70, 

71, 95, 99, 110, 215. 
Whipple, E. P., 118. 
Whitaker, A., 13. 
White, M., 115. 
White, R.G., 163, 164. 
Whitman, Walt, 157, 160. 
Whitney, A. D. T., 139. 
Whittier, J. G., 18, 65, 94, 97-100, 



104, 107, 109, 114, 115, 116, 

145, 147, 248. 
Wigglesworth, M., 19. 
Wilde, R. H., 131. 
Williams, Roger, 15, 18. 
Willis, N. P., 46, 60, 162. 
Wilson, F., 146. 
Wilson, Henry, 145. 
Winthrop, J., 17. 
Wirt, W., 28, 32, 33, 69, 176. 
Woodworth, S., 60. 
Woolson, C. F., 139. 
Worcester, J. E., 89. 
Wordsworth, W., 64, 76, 77. 



Zenobia, 84. 





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State University. 

The Phyto-Theca. 

An adjustable Herbarium Portfolio arranged for fifty speci- 
mens. By W. A. Kellerman, Ph. D. 



Practical Lessons in Elementary Botany. 

A series of blank forms prepared as an aid to students of 
Botany. By W. A. Kellerman; Ph. D. 

A Course in Civil Government. 

By Francis Newton Thorpe, Professor of Constitutional His- 
tory in the University of Pennsylvania. 

** If we were asked to name one book that was a fitting repre- 
sentative of the modern American text-book, we should name 
Thorpe's Civics." 

American Literature. 

A Text-Book for High Schools, Academies, Normal Schools, 
Colleges, etc. By A. H. Smyth, Prof, of Literature, Central High 
School, Philadelphia. 

The ^N^ormal Eng'lisli Grammar. 

By Geo. L. Maris, Prin. of The George School, Newtown, Pa. ; 
late Prin. of Friends' Central High School, Philadelphia. 

Intended for use in Normal Schools, High Schools, Acad- 
emies, and the higher grade of schools generally. It is not a 
book for pupils beginning the study of English grammar. 

The Model Definer. 

A Book for Beginners, containing Definitions, Etymology, and 
Sentences as Models, exhibiting the correct use of Words. By 
A. C. Webb. 

The Model Etymologry. 

Containing Definitions, Etymology, Latin Derivatives, Sen- 
tences as Models, and Analysis. With a Key containing the 
Analysis of every word which could present any difllculties to 
the learner. By A. C. Webb. 

A Manual of Etymologry. 

Containing Definitions, Etymology, Latin Derivatives, Greek 
Derivatives, Sentences as Models, and Analysis. With a Key 
containing the Analysis of every word which could present any 
difficulties to the learner. By A. C. Webb. 

First Lessons in Physiology and Hyg^iene. 

With special reference to the Eflects of Alcohol, Tobacco, etc. 
By Charles K. Mills, M. D. 

First Lessons in Natural Philosophy. 

For Beginners. By Joseph C. Martindale, M. D. 

A Hand-Book of Literature, | Eni^^lisli 
A Short Course in Literature, J Americaiu 

By E. J. Trimble, Late Professor of Literature, State Normal 
School, West Chester, Pa. 

Short Studies in Literature, English and American. 
By A. P. SouTHWiCK, A. M. 



A Haud-Book of ^lytliology. 

By S. A. Edwards, Formerly Teacher of Mythology in the 
Girls' Normal School, Philadelphia. 

3000 Practice Words. 

By J. Willis Westlake, A. M., Late Professor in State Normal 
School, Millersville, Pa. Contains lists of Familiar Words often 
Misspelled, Difficult Words, Homophonous Words, Words often 
Confounded, Eules for Spelling, etc. 

In the School- Room ; 

Or, Chapters in the Philosophy of Education. Gives 
the experience of nearly forty years spent in school- room work. 
By John S. Hart, LL.D. 

Our Bodies. 

By Charles K. Mills, M. D., and A. H. Leuf, M. D. A series 
of five charts for teaching Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene, 
and showing the Effects of Alcohol on the Human Body. 

The Model Pocket-Register and Grade-Book. 

A Eoll-Book, Kecord, and Grade-Book combined. Adapted to 
all grades of Classes, whether in College, Academy, Seminary, 
High or Primary School. 

The Model School Diary. 

Designed as an aid in securing the co-operation of parents. It 
consists of a Record of the Attendance, Deportment, Recita- 
tions, etc., of the Scholar for every day. At the close of the 
week it is to be sent to the parent or guardian for examination 
and signature. 

The Model Monthly Report. 

Similar to the Model School Diary, excepting that it is intended 
for a Monthly instead of a Weekly report of the Attendance, 
Recitations, etc. of the pupil. 

The Model Roll-Book, ^o. 1. 

The Model Roll-Book, ^o. 2. 

The Model Roll-Book, No. 1, is so ruled as to show at a 
glance the record of a class for three months, allowing five 
weeks to each month, with spacing for weekly, monthly, and 
quarterly summary, and a blank space for remarks at the end 
of the quarter. 

The Model Roll-Book, No. 2, is arranged on the same 
general plan, as regards spacing, etc., excepting that each page 
is arranged for a month of five weeks ; but, in addition, the 
names of the studies generally pursued in schools are printed il 
immediately following the name of the pupil, making it more | 

i ; 

-=^!j 



a- 



convenient when it is desirable to have a record of all the 
studies pursued by a pupil brought together in one place. 

Manuals for Teachers. 

A Series of Hand-Books comprising five volumes — Yiz : 

1. On the Ctiltivation of the Senses, 

3, On the Cultivation of the Memory. 
S. On the Use of Words, 

4, On Discipline. 

5, On Class Teaching, 



We shall be gratified to have teachers correspond with us. We offer 
some of the best of Modern Text-Boohs^ and shall be glad at any time 
to mahe liberal arrangements for their introduction. 
Please address 

Eldredge & Brother, 

17 North Seventh Street, 

PHILADELPHIA. 





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